Balancing Changes - What to do?

[Kazomir]

Hello,

 

For a long time now, it feels to me that WG are trying to change the current status quo. Yet, they are afraid of changes that may be perceived as Nerfs (which prompts whining, especially from entitled brats who bought premiums like Belfast and give [edited]all care for game Balance, because they pay money), and instead try to change core game mechanics and introduce new "gimmicks" or differences in lines.

 

This approach, while reducing whining, has a potential of breaking more than it fixes. That said, anyway, something needs to be done about this meta which is BB heavy, Camp-heavy, sometimes snowballfest. Those changes need to  be calculated, and in some ways way more discreet than adding new game mechanics or changing them heavily.

 

With that in mind, looking at what needs to be changed, this is my wishlist for all classes

 

CV:

 

CVs, the problematic class. Introducing new lines for this class is almost not forseeable, since only about 5% of the playerbase plays it. I do not play it as well, this is why I do not know much about it to propose anything of value which is not known by CV players. Feel free to add on in the replies:

 

• Cerrier rebalance - WG has already stated they are working on that
• UI Rework. Make the UI fun to watch at and use. Also, make it effective. Managing mupltiple squadrons while you cannot fit them in one screen, with multiple changing conditions and personal attention required when dropping is hard. Players that master it dominate, ones that do not, are a big reason why their team loses. Keep the good, throw out the bad, roll with it.

BB:

 

The second problematic class: The easiest class to play and the most played one in turn. This class, at the moment, feels like a class without counters. Which is bad. Changes will need to be added to address this.

 

• Credit where credit is due, WG are already looking at AP doing pens on DDs and  stray citadels on cruisers, Bravo!!
• German BBs: Remove the sonar. This will cause outrage ofcourse. So, in return, a nice buff to their Torpedo Defense Protection will be put in place. That way, they are still able to brawl due to their (Now buffed) Secondaries and Turtleback armor.
• All BBs: Stealth builds are fine, they allow people to sneak in and start pounding. Stealth builds I like because they allow for more freedom of movement and do not constrict you to camp.  One thing though. Gun Bloom after firing at 20seconds for Battleships (while the same for all other classes) is some total BS.  It allows the BB to fade away even before it reloads, giving him an easy decision later on as to whether he wants to engage again or not. For BBs' This Bloom needs to be 30 seconds universally, except in cases where the reload is faster, like Sharnhorst.

CA:

 

As a CA player mainly, I feel CA's are generally fine and like the way WG treats them. For now, no changes are needed for CAs apart from perhaps adding 1 or 2 healing charges to some of thetier 8s that have problems with Survivability. Other than that, Zao may need a bit more HP (in the line of 2-5k more HP) to compensate for its loss of StealthFire, but then again Im a Zao player and thus biased. That said, Hinednburg has a whopping 25% more HP!

 

Any more buffs to CAs with the aforementioned nerfs to BBs will break game balance.

 

DD:

 

DDs are in fact fine as well, apart from one line that had it's identity removed. This is the IJN Line. Crap gunboats with Edited  HP, they are the designated torpedoboats that are one of the long-forgotten counters of Battleships. Due to heavy nerfs after the Shimakaze Torpedo Spam times, they are now obsolete.

 

More to the point, Current testing of Pan Asian DDs gives them a designated anti-BB torpedoes, which have a lot less detection range than IJN Torps and also, similar damage. ALL THE WHILE HIGH TIER PADDs HAVE USN GUNS AND CONCEALMENT.

 

Concealment of IJN torps needs to be improved

 

 

These changes are, ofcourse, not going to be liked by some players, but would be necessary for the healthy and wholesome balance of the game.  A german BB main may whine a lot for example, but when he has a blanaced game, he will also try, say, IJN cruisers and say: Hey, that aint all that bad! lemme get some premium time to advance on this line instead. (Utopia, i know, but eh, one can dream)

 

Now I know many of you who opened this thread may have not read my post, but to those who did, I appreciate it.

 

Now, if you will, Please Please Please have a nice discussion without Edited  on other people's opinions (and stats) before you disprove them.

 

This post has been edited by the moderation team due to swearing. 

[Exocet6951]

In all fairness to the topics covered, I feel there one that needs to be discussed more often: IFHE

It can't stay.
It's one thing for a ship with 8x152mm guns or so with low fire chance to have it, but on 12x152mm ships with high fire chance as well like the Kutuzov ?
Nope. Nope nope nope.

There are only so many games in an Atlanta where you can find a Nagato or Colorado with his pants down, and absolutely melt him down in less than a minute before you start to feel bad.

[Kazomir]

7 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

In all fairness to the topics covered, I feel there one that needs to be discussed more often: IFHE

It can't stay.
It's one thing for a ship with 8x152mm guns or so with low fire chance to have it, but on 12x152mm ships with high fire chance as well like the Kutuzov ?
Nope. Nope nope nope.

There are only so many games in an Atlanta where you can find a Nagato or Colorado with his pants down, and absolutely melt him down in less than a minute before you start to feel bad.

 

Ow, this is one I did not even think about.

 

And it is indeed a fair point. IFHE is too strong on such ships, especially Belfast and Kutuzov. Toning this skill down further will nerf them without giving a reason for their users to whine, as the statistics of the ship were in all fairness not touched.

 

Currently 203mm guns dont really feel superior to the same amount of 152mms with IFHE.

[ClappingLollies]

11 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

It can't stay.
It's one thing for a ship with 8x152mm guns or so with low fire chance to have it, but on 12x152mm ships with high fire chance as well like the Kutuzov ?
Nope. Nope nope nope.

Yes yes yes. When you have to fight 5 BBs all the time you need it. If not its going to take 6-7 minutes just to kill 1 reversing idiot. But don't worry, cruisers are getting a BIG nerf soon. Its called RN BB's. 

[Kazomir]

4 minutes ago, MortenTardo said:

Yes yes yes. When you have to fight 5 BBs all the time you need it. If not its going to take 6-7 minutes just to kill 1 reversing idiot. But don't worry, cruisers are getting a BIG nerf soon. Its called RN BB's. 

 

To be honest, you are looking at it one-dimensionally.

 

If BBs are nerfed according to the changes i proposed in the OP,  at the same time IFHE is, it will be reasonable. 

 

Tier 7 BBs are not way OP, but suffer most from IFHE wielding Kutuzov and Belfasts.

[Exocet6951]

3 minutes ago, MortenTardo said:

Yes yes yes. When you have to fight 5 BBs all the time you need it. If not its going to take 6-7 minutes just to kill 1 reversing idiot. But don't worry, cruisers are getting a BIG nerf soon. Its called RN BB's. 

 

It really depends on what BBs we're talking about.

This is one of the critical problems of the game: balance is done by class, completely oblivious to the fact that there are fundamentally different problems are different tiers.

 

At higher tier, IFHE becomes less of a problem because the only thing you gain from having IFHE is being able to damage some cruisers with low caliber HE, and 38mm plating on USN BBs with IFHE 203mm
But at lower tier?
Colorado, Nagato, soon to be KGV all covered in 25mm plating, for example. And same at lower tier.
IFHE + fast firing 152 is a combo that just feels unfair, no matter if you're in the BB or shooting at it.

 

You don't fix an issue by introducing another one.

It's a quick fix solution that tries to give CLs a fighting chance against BBs because that's the majority target, when it should be in the first place.

[EmilyFara]

In my opinion the stealth delay should be like 2 or 3 times the rate of fire or something like that. 

Hitting slow firing ships (that generally don't rely on stealth) the hardest. And giving the fast firing ships that generally rely on stealth the biggest gain. 

 

Or at the very least balance it to ship classes. 20 seconds for a destroyer is way too long and 20 seconds for a battleship us way to short. 

[ClappingLollies]

8 minutes ago, Kazomir said:

 

To be honest, you are looking at it one-dimensionally.

 

If BBs are nerfed according to the changes i proposed in the OP,  at the same time IFHE is, it will be reasonable. 

 

Tier 7 BBs are not way OP, but suffer most from IFHE wielding Kutuzov and Belfasts.

Well yes they suffer from it, but keep in mind that EVERY other cruiser is suffering from random citadels and focus from more than 3 BBs at the time every game. There is no rock, paper, scissor balance in this game anymore, so everything have to counter everything.  And when you take a citadel in a cruiser you are screw'd. I know you said that nerfing BB's would help, but thats never going to happen. If anything they will get buffs to get on RN BB's lvl. Wait and see. 

[Culiacan_Mexico]

On 8/18/2017 at 11:48 AM, Kazomir said:

Hello,

 

For a long time now, it feels to me that WG are trying to change the current status quo. Yet, they are afraid of changes that may be perceived as Nerfs...

 

... That said, anyway, something needs to be done about this meta which is BB heavy...

 

CV:

 

• Cerrier rebalance - 
• UI Rework.

BB:

 

The second problematic class: The easiest class to play and the most played one in turn. This class, at the moment, feels like a class without counters. Which is bad. Changes will need to be added to address this.

 

• Credit where credit is due, WG are already looking at AP doing pens on DDs and  stray citadels on cruisers, Bravo!!
• German BBs: Remove the sonar. This will cause outrage ofcourse. So, in return, a nice buff to their Torpedo Defense Protection will be put in place. That way, they are still able to brawl due to their (Now buffed) Secondaries and Turtleback armor.
• All BBs: Stealth builds are fine, they allow people to sneak in and start pounding. Stealth builds I like because they allow for more freedom of movement and do not constrict you to camp.  One thing though. Gun Bloom after firing at 20seconds for Battleships (while the same for all other classes) is some total BS.  It allows the BB to fade away even before it reloads, giving him an easy decision later on as to whether he wants to engage again or not. For BBs' This Bloom needs to be 30 seconds universally, except in cases where the reload is faster, like Sharnhorst.

CA:

 

...I feel CA's are generally fine and like the way WG treats them...

.

DD:

 

DDs are in fact fine as well....

Now I know many of you who opened this thread may have not read my post, but to those who did, I appreciate it.

 

Now, if you will, Please Please Please have a nice discussion without shitting on other people's opinions (and stats) before you disprove them.

I don't believe anything you proposed will have much of an effect. Basically, CA and DDs are fine will CV changes have no effect on BB numbers; as changes are related to one nationality of ship.

 

If you believe BB numbers are too high, then you need to determine why and nerf that aspect.  

 

On 8/18/2017 at 0:51 PM, MortenTardo said:

...nerfing BB's would help, but thats never going to happen. If anything they will get buffs to get on RN BB's lvl. Wait and see. 

[Kazomir]

1 minute ago, Culiacan_Mexico said:

I don't believe anything you proposed will have much of an effect. Basically, CA and DDs are fine will CV changes have no effect on BB numbers; as changes are related to one nationality of ship.

 

If you believe BB numbers are too high, then you need to determine why and nerf that aspect.  

 

Id rather prefer safe small changes in the right direction then more small changes if it does not work the first time, than the haphazard sledgehammer balancing WG tends to use nowadays.

 

Change those thins, see if it works out.

 

9 minutes ago, MortenTardo said:

Well yes they suffer from it, but keep in mind that EVERY other cruiser is suffering from random citadels and focus from more than 3 BBs at the time every game. There is no rock, paper, scissor balance in this game anymore, so everything have to counter everything.  And when you take a citadel in a cruiser you are screw'd. I know you said that nerfing BB's would help, but thats never going to happen. If anything they will get buffs to get on RN BB's lvl. Wait and see. 

 

I am a cruiser player (or I want to be,I dont know my percentages of ships played), I know.I know what you are saying makes sense, but "Not gonna happen" is a poor excuse to argue your point with.

[ClappingLollies]

4 minutes ago, Exocet6951 said:

IFHE + fast firing 152 is a combo that just feels unfair, no matter if you're in the BB or shooting at it.

 

You don't fix an issue by introducing another one.

It's a quick fix solution that tries to give CLs a fighting chance against BBs because that's the majority target, when it should be in the first place.

 

It feels unfair to get deleted when not making a mistake in a cruiser as well. I feel like i have to take a shower after i shoot AP at a DD and do him in for 15k dmg with BB's aswell. Like i said, the fact that BB's "should" target cruisers and cruisers "should" target DD's and DD's sould target BB's is not the case anymore it seems. WG screw'd that up when they made BB's the best DD,CL and CA counter in the game.  

 

If a Conqueror can outspot me in the Moskva, i should damn be able to delete him in one salvo like he can do to me, otherwise its not balance anymore. If not, then its just one class is stronker than every other. I agree most classes need a rework tho. 

[ClappingLollies]

1 minute ago, Kazomir said:

 

I am a cruiser player (or I want to be,I dont know my percentages of ships played), I know.I know what you are saying makes sense, but "Not gonna happen" is a poor excuse to argue your point with.

Im not trying to be a troll, its just how i see WG doing things. We have seen it over and over. 

[Culiacan_Mexico]

8 minutes ago, Kazomir said:

Id rather prefer safe small changes in the right direction then more small changes if it does not work the first time, than the haphazard sledgehammer balancing WG tends to use nowadays.

I agree incremental change would be better, but that is not WGs style.  I believe it took WG +18 months to lower Pensacola's detection rating; something that could have been done relatively quickly.

 

Self correction: WG did notice Fubuki was under performing and gave a modest turret rotation buff and they saw Khabarovsk was over performing and nerfed its torpedos.   ;)

 

 

[Kazomir]

5 minutes ago, MortenTardo said:

Im not trying to be a troll, its just how i see WG doing things. We have seen it over and over. 

 

 

1 minute ago, Culiacan_Mexico said:

I agree incremental change would be better, but that is not WGs style.  I believe it took WG +18 months to lower Pensacola's detection rating; something that could have been done relatively quickly.

 

 

 

I know, but it does not hurt to have a discussion about it. Nobody does. Everyone just whines and whines, and does not provide any feasible feedback as to why the changes WG tends to introduce hurt more than fix. It is annoying!

[dasCKD]

The thing that carriers need is symmetrical fighter capabilities and fixed load outs, what they do not need is targeted weapons that inherently limit their capabilities against certain enemies whilst entirely overplaying their effectiveness against others.

[Kazomir]

1 minute ago, dasCKD said:

The thing that carriers need is symmetrical fighter capabilities and fixed load outs, what they do not need is targeted weapons that inherently limit their capabilities against certain enemies whilst entirely overplaying their effectiveness against others.

 

Yes, only 1 loadout and the removal of AS vs Strike loadouts would be great! It is very much not fun with your strike carrier if you run into an AS carrier which shuts you down.

 

 

[Culiacan_Mexico]

2 minutes ago, Kazomir said:

I know, but it does not hurt to have a discussion about it. Nobody does. Everyone just whines and whines, and does not provide any feasible feedback as to why the changes WG tends to introduce hurt more than fix. It is annoying!

I don't disagree, but.............   ;)

 

The elephant in the room is this, if BBs are over played, then they need to be nerfed. 

 

 

[ClappingLollies]

2 minutes ago, Kazomir said:

 

I know, but it does not hurt to have a discussion about it. Nobody does. Everyone just whines and whines, and does not provide any feasible feedback as to why the changes WG tends to introduce hurt more than fix. It is annoying!

I think alot of us is getting tired of the "balanceing". But it does not hurt at all. 

I think every class needs a rework. Some classes are being balanced around the old rock, paper, scissor method, and some are not. So i think everything needs an overhaul. CV's, BB's, DD's and cruisers. But like i said, doubt its going to happen. But one can hope. 

[Culiacan_Mexico]

4 minutes ago, dasCKD said:

The thing that carriers need is symmetrical fighter capabilities and fixed load outs, what they do not need is targeted weapons that inherently limit their capabilities against certain enemies whilst entirely overplaying their effectiveness against others.

I don't play carriers... but this seems so obvious.

[ClappingLollies]

Just now, Culiacan_Mexico said:

I don't disagree, but.............   ;)

 

The elephant in the room is this, if BBs are over played, then they need to be nerfed. 

 

 

They dont have to nerf them at all. The problem im having when i play cruisers for example is that i often get focused by 4 or 5 of them. A simple fix is to limit them to 3. Like it has been said on this forum a million times it seems ;)

[lycea]

CV: US line needs different plane setup to be able to compete with the japanese at high tiers, and the other way around at tier 4-5

 

BB's: lower the armor on the bow so it can be overmatched by other battleships. 

 

CA's: lower the citadel so they won't get insta deleted whenever a battleship sniffs at them

 

DD's: tighter torpedo spread on pure torp boats 

 

[Culiacan_Mexico]

17 minutes ago, MortenTardo said:

They dont have to nerf them at all. The problem im having when i play cruisers for example is that i often get focused by 4 or 5 of them. A simple fix is to limit them to 3. Like it has been said on this forum a million times it seems ;)

Since WG has eliminated limits for anything other than CVs, the only other possibility is to change game play enough that players move out of BBs.

 

If that is a goal.  I am not sure it is for WG.

[Ubertron_X]

The thing is that nerfing is indeed a bad concept that will drive players away in any game. If possible you should buff weaker elements instead, however I admit that is also hard to do.

 

On the other hand WG really needs to learn how other games balance things. Most MOBA type games balance in (if required even multiple) 5% incrementals until the statistics of a specific piece are fine, WG still uses a 0% or 100% approach and is not overly afraid to even change gobal rules now and then, greatly impacting gameplay. Also they need to learn to accept roll-backs if changes do not provide the desired result.

 

Some ideas of mine include heals for all T8 cruisers (all CA and BB in T8 to T10 bracket should be able to heal), special BB matchmaking to reduce stress on the matchmaker (Jutland type battles with only BB/BC), special service costs for BB to coerce people to play other ships once in a while, and more distinction in stealth levels in between the DD lines to further help distinguish those lines from each other (yeah we all know that generally the Russians are bad at stealth and the Japanese are good, but come on, apart from some outliers everbody has 6.0 or so in the end, and anybody that has ever played a DD vs a good Kagero knows that a couple of 100 meters advantage can be huge).

 

However I don't know what to do about CVs though as assymetric gameplay is damn hard to balance.

 

 

[Kazomir]

6 minutes ago, Ubertron_X said:

The thing is that nerfing is indeed a bad concept that will drive players away in any game. If possible you should buff weaker elements instead, however I admit that is also hard to do.

 

On the other hand WG really needs to learn how other games balance things. Most MOBA type games balance in (if required even multiple) 5% incrementals until the statistics of a specific piece are fine, WG still uses a 0% or 100% approach and is not overly afraid to even change gobal rules now and then, greatly impacting gameplay. Also they need to learn to accept roll-backs if changes do not provide the desired result.

 

Some ideas of mine include heals for all T8 cruisers (all CA and BB in T8 to T10 bracket should be able to heal), special BB matchmaking to reduce stress on the matchmaker (Jutland type battles with only BB/BC), special service costs for BB to coerce people to play other ships once in a while, and more distinction in stealth levels in between the DD lines to further help distinguish those lines from each other (yeah we all know that generally the Russians are bad at stealth and the Japanese are good, but come on, apart from some outliers everbody has 6.0 or so in the end, and anybody that has ever played a DD vs a good Kagero knows that a couple of 100 meters advantage can be huge).

 

However I don't know what to do about CVs though as assymetric gameplay is damn hard to balance.

 

 

 

Know what else is a really bad concept? Power creep.

 

Balanced game on the other hand is good, even if some people leave because of nerfs, you get a lot more retention of existing players and a slow income of new players.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

12 minutes ago, Ubertron_X said:

The thing is that nerfing is indeed a bad concept that will drive players away in any game.

I don't believe WG agrees, as they have nerfed CV, DD and Cruiser.