BBs ability to obliterated CA from long distance needs to be addressed

[Grumpy_Fink]

I am sick to death of being obliterated in a CA from full heath from 20+km away, while being heavily angled by BB's. WG this has to stop, its just stupid. In beta when CA and BB could do this to DD, you removed DD citadels. I am not asking you do this, but you need to address the situation.

 

Some suggestions to change this are:

 

• Change the over-match mechanics, so after a set distance shells can no longer over-match armor
• Change AP that after a set distance, its ability to penetrate drops off dramatically
• Change CA citadels so they are smaller, so tougher to hit a great distances
• Change BBs dispersion so it increase dramatically after a set distance

 

Any of these would help and you never know some of them could help stop the high tier BB camping/sniping meta which now plagues the game.

 

Thanks

 

[VC381]

A BB can obliterate a cruiser... But not from 20km. Usually not from 15km either. You can see the shells coming, watch the dispersion, you can dodge. Cruisers aren't meant to rely on angling vs. BBs and what a cruiser can and can't bounce changes from ship to ship. Learn your ship's armour scheme and what guns will overmatch you, and practice dodging more.

[Donar79]

My Arizona absolutely disagrees

Such very long range one shots are very rare in my experience...if this happens u where spotted a certain time und should expect BB salvos and not stay broadside the whole time..

But i agree on that silly 80% HP losses while angled...i think this isn't fun and engaging

[Migulaitor]

13 minutes ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

• Change the over-match mechanics, so after a set distance shells can no longer over-match armor
• Change AP that after a set distance, its ability to penetrate drops off dramatically

Both buffs to BBs.

13 minutes ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

• Change BBs dispersion so it increase dramatically after a set distance

 

Wont save you from those random citadels.

 

Usually the best way to survive in CAs is to dont stop using your rudder, just be the hardest target to shoot at.

[ColonelPete]

Obliteration from 20km is not a problem.

Obliteration from 14km and closer is a problem.

 

At longer ranges you can dodge or use stealth.

[VC381]

4 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Obliteration from 14km and closer is a problem.

 

At longer ranges you can dodge or use stealth.

 

You can use stealth and dodging down to about 10km depending on what cruiser you're in and what BB is shooting at you. It's a bit of a gamble but you can, let's say, "manage the risk" quite well if you keep your wits about you. The cruisers that can't don't need to be that close anyway.

[Grumpy_Fink]

18 minutes ago, VC381 said:

A BB can obliterate a cruiser... But not from 20km. Usually not from 15km either. You can see the shells coming, watch the dispersion, you can dodge. Cruisers aren't meant to rely on angling vs. BBs and what a cruiser can and can't bounce changes from ship to ship. Learn your ship's armour scheme and what guns will overmatch you, and practice dodging more.

 

I dont need to practice dodging, i have no issues at close range or when i know i am being shot at. Its when your shot at from the other side of the map without knowledge its happening and BOOM you're gone. It used to be a rare occasion, now its happening more and more.

[VC381]

15 minutes ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

 

I dont need to practice dodging, i have no issues at close range or when i know i am being shot at. Its when your shot at from the other side of the map without knowledge its happening and BOOM you're gone. It used to be a rare occasion, now its happening more and more.

 

In that case, Priority Target and Incoming Fire Alert are your friends.

[BillydSquid]

36 minutes ago, VC381 said:

 

In that case, Priority Target and Incoming Fire Alert are your friends.

 

Lol priority target, whenever I'm playing the Minotaur, as soon as I'm spotted I'm mass targeted by 5/6 enemy ships, it's always useful, but also illustrates just how heavily targeted CAs are.

 

The default position for any T10 CA is, have you fired? Then assume you will be immediately targeted by multiple BBs and other ships.  Incoming fire alert is largely redundant given the current amount of focus fire directed at CAs, well at least in my experience of T10 CAs

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Being deleted from long range is using no rudder and coming out of concealment by shooting...

 

I don't see how it can be without your knowledge, no big ! on your screen?

[Viktor_Lima]

The original poster is referring to the extremely long range falling shells that from T8-T10 will sometimes delete your cruiser even if you did everything right. You maneuvered after he shot and the BB's aim was thwarted, but thanks to dispersion one of the shells lands on your deck and as the impact angle is very steep it goes right down into the citadel for 11.5k or more. It's really like playing Russian Roulette with the enemy BB fleet, as when 3-5 of them are giving off opportunity salvoes, one of them will get lucky and you can only take 3-4 of those hits.

I can accept those outcomes in a Zao or Hindenburg, where I'm a massive threat in terms of DPS and HP pool, but it's downright terrible for the T8 CAs without repair, like New Orleans, Hipper, Mogami and Chapayev and part of why these ships are so hard to play.

 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Thing is these RNG super salvos will slice through BBs too and take 25% or more HP...

 

It's RNG and what happens when stuff starts flying through the air. If this happened every game it would be an issue.

[cherry2blost]

2 hours ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

I am sick to death of being obliterated in a CA from full heath from 20+km away, while being heavily angled by BB's. WG this has to stop, its just stupid. In beta when CA and BB could do this to DD, you removed DD citadels. I am not asking you do this, but you need to address the situation.

 

Some suggestions to change this are:

 

• Change the over-match mechanics, so after a set distance shells can no longer over-match armor
• Change AP that after a set distance, its ability to penetrate drops off dramatically
• Change CA citadels so they are smaller, so tougher to hit a great distances
• Change BBs dispersion so it increase dramatically after a set distance

 

Any of these would help and you never know some of them could help stop the high tier BB camping/sniping meta which now plagues the game.

 

Thanks

 

You are obviously seeing a very different game to mine......

from 2:35:00

 

 

[Quetak]

6 minutes ago, cherry2blost said:

You are obviously seeing a very different game to mine......

from 2:35:00

 

 

Des Moines vs. Tirpitz/Bismarck is very bad example since DM is eating these two BBs for breakfast.

[Migulaitor]

7 minutes ago, Quetak said:

Des Moines vs. Tirpitz/Bismarck is very bad example since DM is eating these two BBs for breakfast.

Just did, 2 minutes ago, DM bow on, Bis bouncing on the bow going broadside to shoot (and bounce) even more, dealed 30k dmg in less than 30 seconds 

Also, should a BB be expected to take on 2 cruisers 2 tiers higher?

[Exocet6951]

11 minutes ago, cherry2blost said:

You are obviously seeing a very different game to mine......

from 2:35:00

 

 

 

So you had to pick a match where a BB two tiers below with smaller than average guns that can't overmatch the bow of that cruiser in order to make your point?

Might as well just start calling cruisers fine because a Kutuzov completely ****s all over a Dunkerque
 

[VC381]

54 minutes ago, Viktor_Slanski said:

The original poster is referring to the extremely long range falling shells that from T8-T10 will sometimes delete your cruiser even if you did everything right. You maneuvered after he shot and the BB's aim was thwarted, but thanks to dispersion one of the shells lands on your deck and as the impact angle is very steep it goes right down into the citadel for 11.5k or more. It's really like playing Russian Roulette with the enemy BB fleet, as when 3-5 of them are giving off opportunity salvoes, one of them will get lucky and you can only take 3-4 of those hits.

I can accept those outcomes in a Zao or Hindenburg, where I'm a massive threat in terms of DPS and HP pool, but it's downright terrible for the T8 CAs without repair, like New Orleans, Hipper, Mogami and Chapayev and part of why these ships are so hard to play.

 

This argument only works up to a point.

 

At the ranges you're talking about, the shells come in pretty slow and the game gives you nice bright white graphics for them. It is perfectly possible to see the dispersion develop and fine adjust with the rudder to dodge individual shells. Especially in small and nimble T8 cruisers like New Orleans. A quick tap to Q and E and that citadel becomes a harmless splash next to your ship. Of course this has limits as well, but as I said it's all about risk management.

[Vaderan]

BB RNG is blessing and doom of it´s target with every salvo fired. The unpredictable shellspread can go just fine, so you cruiser (or even BB) will have a lot of splashes all around, or it takes the devastating tripple-citadell, despite maneuvering like a maniac.

This is, by the way, what makes BB sniping so popular. For the (lowskilled) BB player, it´s a gamble with every salvo, the gamble for the lucky hit, or just a waste of another 30 seconds for reload. BB players cannot predict the spread of their volley, and their targets cannot aswell, just guessing for the correct evasion-course and praying for RNG bein on their side.

Both compensates for bad skills and limits the impact of good skills, no matter wether aiming skills or dodging skills. I bet, everyone in here can recall games, where 15 salvos went terribly wrong (when in a BB) and the 16th did that lucky tripple citadell on a cruiser, while the first salvo aimed on your cruisers was that one that immediatly reduced you to a fraction of your HP, 1 minute into the game. Any change to penetration mechanics  that protect soft targets will aswell protect (and therefore buff) BBs aswell.

The only way i see to improve the overall situation, is a drastical change to BB accuracy. They need to become way more accurate.

The short-sighted an the anti-BB lobbyists of course no will cry out in disbeleave and laughter, just seeing a major buff to BBs and a drastical nerf to all other classes.

All others will accnowledge the truth behind this: nerf to BBs and a buff to cruisers and DDs. With drastically increased BB accuracy, small and maneuverable targets like cruisers and DDs will be almost impossible to be hit at longer ranges or even max range, while stationary/camping or slow moving BBs will provide very valuable targets for concentrated fire. Skilled cruiser/DD captains with good maneuvering skills and good map awarness will easily be able to avoid incoming damage by long range snipers.

All but the very best/trained BB gunners will go desperate at range combat, completly ruining their sniping success, forcing them to either go for brawling maneuvers or dropping their BB ambitions at all, going for other classes.

Of course, increasing BB accuracy drastically will make them more deadly in close combat. However, DDs and torpedo armed cruisers are deadly on close combat aswell, and even in a brawl, the BB captain needs the skill to aim properly, to avoid bounces or waste his shells on a couple of overpenetrations.

Yes, the ammount of devastating hits by BBs in close combat will increase, but so does the number of complete misses or overpens. Lucky shots, with the one shell going wide and scoring a citadell, will decrease. BBs and their salvos will become more predictable, allowing for better maneuvering and espeially a way better survival rate while closing the gap.

Last but not least, BB players will soon figure out, that other BBs now pose a much higher thread to them, so the focus might very probably shift from cruisers to BBs.

Right now, everybody goes on cruisers first, because they are just so easy to damage. Their vulnerability compensates for BB RNG, since the BB just has a higher chance to be lucky on a weekly armed cruiser, compared to a BB. But with higher accuracy, BB shells are less probably to miss the spot aimed for on the enemy BB, making more or better hits on a BB more probable. Even bow on BBs would suffer greatly from masses of well aimed and placed high calibre HE shells.

I am aware, that my theory might sound strange, but considering the fact, that most players (including me) complain most about the lucky hits, the camping BBs score, it appears to be the best to simply remove the luck aspect and replace it by skill requirement. Suddenly, BBs wouldn´t be "the easiest class to play" anymore, but the most skill dependend "all or nothing" class. That way, almost any annoying aspect about BBs would be removed at onced: campers, overpopulation by BB-no-skillers, lucky hits from long range, for the price of a (maybe) increased chance of suffering from well aimed shots at close range, no matter what class you play.

I cannot say, wether this might be the ultimate solution, but i would really like to see it on a test-server, or maybe for a test period on the live server. Just to see, if this theory would work out, or if it would screw it (the already screwed meta) even more.

[Viktor_Lima]

My suggestion and the least intrusive option here is to hand a repair party to all CAs from T8 onwards. Think about it: CAs lose their speed edge at T8. Fast battleships can suddenly maneuver almost as well as the cruisers while before you had around 10 knots of difference between the BB and CA speeds. In a way already Scharnhorst and Gneisenau completely outperform CAs in their role at T7. It's insult heaped on injury, that cruisers get restricted to small unrepairable hp pools at T8, while the competition basically gets hydro, speed and superior staying power. Repair party at least lets you retire and come back to battle if you receive a freak hit in the opening stages of a match, something that BB regard as a birthright.

[BillydSquid]

22 minutes ago, Vaderan said:

BB RNG is blessing and doom of it´s target with every salvo fired. The unpredictable shellspread can go just fine, so you cruiser (or even BB) will have a lot of splashes all around, or it takes the devastating tripple-citadell, despite maneuvering like a maniac.

This is, by the way, what makes BB sniping so popular. For the (lowskilled) BB player, it´s a gamble with every salvo, the gamble for the lucky hit, or just a waste of another 30 seconds for reload. BB players cannot predict the spread of their volley, and their targets cannot aswell, just guessing for the correct evasion-course and praying for RNG bein on their side.

Both compensates for bad skills and limits the impact of good skills, no matter wether aiming skills or dodging skills. I bet, everyone in here can recall games, where 15 salvos went terribly wrong (when in a BB) and the 16th did that lucky tripple citadell on a cruiser, while the first salvo aimed on your cruisers was that one that immediatly reduced you to a fraction of your HP, 1 minute into the game. Any change to penetration mechanics  that protect soft targets will aswell protect (and therefore buff) BBs aswell.

The only way i see to improve the overall situation, is a drastical change to BB accuracy. They need to become way more accurate.

The short-sighted an the anti-BB lobbyists of course no will cry out in disbeleave and laughter, just seeing a major buff to BBs and a drastical nerf to all other classes.

All others will accnowledge the truth behind this: nerf to BBs and a buff to cruisers and DDs. With drastically increased BB accuracy, small and maneuverable targets like cruisers and DDs will be almost impossible to be hit at longer ranges or even max range, while stationary/camping or slow moving BBs will provide very valuable targets for concentrated fire. Skilled cruiser/DD captains with good maneuvering skills and good map awarness will easily be able to avoid incoming damage by long range snipers.

All but the very best/trained BB gunners will go desperate at range combat, completly ruining their sniping success, forcing them to either go for brawling maneuvers or dropping their BB ambitions at all, going for other classes.

Of course, increasing BB accuracy drastically will make them more deadly in close combat. However, DDs and torpedo armed cruisers are deadly on close combat aswell, and even in a brawl, the BB captain needs the skill to aim properly, to avoid bounces or waste his shells on a couple of overpenetrations.

Yes, the ammount of devastating hits by BBs in close combat will increase, but so does the number of complete misses or overpens. Lucky shots, with the one shell going wide and scoring a citadell, will decrease. BBs and their salvos will become more predictable, allowing for better maneuvering and espeially a way better survival rate while closing the gap.

Last but not least, BB players will soon figure out, that other BBs now pose a much higher thread to them, so the focus might very probably shift from cruisers to BBs.

Right now, everybody goes on cruisers first, because they are just so easy to damage. Their vulnerability compensates for BB RNG, since the BB just has a higher chance to be lucky on a weekly armed cruiser, compared to a BB. But with higher accuracy, BB shells are less probably to miss the spot aimed for on the enemy BB, making more or better hits on a BB more probable. Even bow on BBs would suffer greatly from masses of well aimed and placed high calibre HE shells.

I am aware, that my theory might sound strange, but considering the fact, that most players (including me) complain most about the lucky hits, the camping BBs score, it appears to be the best to simply remove the luck aspect and replace it by skill requirement. Suddenly, BBs wouldn´t be "the easiest class to play" anymore, but the most skill dependend "all or nothing" class. That way, almost any annoying aspect about BBs would be removed at onced: campers, overpopulation by BB-no-skillers, lucky hits from long range, for the price of a (maybe) increased chance of suffering from well aimed shots at close range, no matter what class you play.

I cannot say, wether this might be the ultimate solution, but i would really like to see it on a test-server, or maybe for a test period on the live server. Just to see, if this theory would work out, or if it would screw it (the already screwed meta) even more.

 

Yeah, now try playing the RN inside 10km, or any CA for that matter with that buff, increasing BB accuracy will relegate 12km and below a complete kill zone to high tier CAs given their size and rudder shift. 

 

Long range sniping may take a hit, yet no CA in their right mind would ever want to move inside 15km given the time to target and accuracy of the main guns. 

 

You will still get long range sniping, and a lot of pissing and moaning about how BBs can't hit targets at long range, namely CAs, because the game is designed and weighted towards rewarding a % of the total HP damage done. So your target of choice is always going to be a CA when playing a BB because the game's reward system skews play towards hitting the easiest and softest target, which they can deal the largest % of hp as damage, which at T8+ is a CA. 

 

So you won't actually change anything as the behavior is a partially a result of the game's reward mechanics which make camping a low risk, but high potential reward tactic. Even if the players doing it don't hit crap 50% of the games, hence you also get the huge BB T8 over population where the service costs are not prohibitive and players can scrape by with about 40k damage in a BB and still break even. 

[Jethro_Grey]

If a BB obliterates you at 20km, you need to learn to WASD.

[VC381]

53 minutes ago, Vaderan said:

BB RNG is blessing and doom of it´s target with every salvo fired. The unpredictable shellspread can go just fine, so you cruiser (or even BB) will have a lot of splashes all around, or it takes the devastating tripple-citadell, despite maneuvering like a maniac.

This is, by the way, what makes BB sniping so popular. For the (lowskilled) BB player, it´s a gamble with every salvo, the gamble for the lucky hit, or just a waste of another 30 seconds for reload. BB players cannot predict the spread of their volley, and their targets cannot aswell, just guessing for the correct evasion-course and praying for RNG bein on their side.

Both compensates for bad skills and limits the impact of good skills, no matter wether aiming skills or dodging skills.

 

This is not really true. A BB can't predict his dispersion when he fires and can't do anything about it afterwards, but a cruiser can see the shells spread and as I said, make adjustments to dodging until the second the shells hit the water. Dodging like a maniac is doing it wrong, it makes you slow and actually quite predictable. You don't just WASD randomly and pray for bad dispersion, you plan each dodge based on your enemy firing and the shells you see coming.

 

Yes there is RNG in the game but it doesn't negate skill. Good players get consistently good results for a reason: it's not all random if you know how to stack the odds in your favour. That's why I say it's risk management, for both BBs firing and cruisers dodging. It's easy to remember some rare events as examples but it's completely wrong to think about probability like that.

[captain_lef]

i believe that the only change needed is to triple the dispersion of battleships for ranges above 15K, which is a quite effective range for all cruisers. 

[lameoll]

6 hours ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

Change BBs dispersion so it increase dramatically after a set distance

this is mostly the reason WHY u get so manny citadels trough ur [edited]by plunging fire.

they completely miss their main salvo and the furthest dispersed shell hits ur citadel.

6 hours ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

Change the over-match mechanics, so after a set distance shells can no longer over-match armor

dont think plunging fire has annything to do with overmatching. (could be wrong)

 

6 hours ago, Grumpy_Fink said:

Change CA citadels so they are smaller, so tougher to hit a great distances

Maybe they can make this work that the citadel size stays the same but only made smaller when angled away.

so when they show broadside the citadel stays the same size but when angled its a little bit harder to hit.

wont know what an impact that will have tho

[Gnirf]

If there is one thing I am irritated about is the insane low concealment several battleships have. Down in the 12-13 km region. When uptiered against ships like North Carolina in a T6 crusier and you have worse concealment  is crazy IMO.