Fix the BB spam, Hardcap for BBs is needed

[Tuench]

Hello,

 

I know its a hard topic but at some point it needs to be adressed. Since the introduction of the german BB line at the GamesCom 2016 we have a constant overflow of BBs. Its OK if a new line is in the game people want to play it and therefor the new ships are a dominating thing for some days maybe weeks. But GC2016 was more than a year ago and nothing changed.

Well, thats not true, DDs got nerfed, BBs got nerfbuffed and CL/CA did not recive anything what could help them against their natural enemy the BB. 

As a follow up of the constant 5BB per side the cruisers start to lose intrest in the game. Beeing under fire from 5BBs is most likely a death sentence to a cruiser. With 12 players on the field from wich are 5BBs, one or 2 are CVs, 2-3 DDs there is not much space for cruisers, so u see 2-3 cruisers. CL/CA is the natural prey of the BB... now imagine the fun u have as a cruiser. I mean ur good against DDs... but BB AP is working pretty well too. Your good at AA(sometimes and if u have skilled your captain and equipped the ship accordingly) but BBs can do this too.

BBs are pushing DDs in smoke cause they know they want get nuked, they can take it and heal most of the times and will kill the tiny annoying xp piniata anyway. Thanks to BBAP full pens and secondarie fire that luckiely got nerfed a bit.

 

So what can we do about the constant 5BB each side thread? 

I dont want to nerf BBs, they should be the BigBoys on the block, a thread that noone can ignore. All i want is that we match at least for any BB ingame 2 cruisers against it. Just to balance the power a bit, and give cruisers a chance to not get focused instantly if he is not hiding behind a rock and just sitting there waiting for a tiny window to actally do something. 

 

so what about a MM like:

 

    5BBs will not be possible anymore as we dont have 15ppl on the field

    4BBs-8CL/CA-no DD/CV

    3BBs-6+CL/CA 3 free spots for DD/CV/CL/CA

    2BBs-4+CL/CA 6 free spots for DD/CV/CL/CA

    and a very special match for a shorter waiting time in queue all out BB super clash MM with any ship in the match will be a BB i guess       that will be fun, im sure! belive me 

  

well, thats all folks, if u have any ideas how to work with it in other ways, please share it with us.

 

 

have a nice weekend commanders, cu on the beach 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Triple figure BBs in queue with single figures for all other classes.

 

Working as intended according to WG...

 

Although I played a game earlier with NO RN BBs, was 3+ KM per side however.

[aboomination]

Everyone has a Bismarck + GER event + t8(+) Yamamoto campaign = tons of KM BB in queue

[Vaderan]

BBs require a skillcap, not a hardcap. Make them as challanging to play, as carriers, and things will be sorted out by themselves. As long as BBs are the "easy to play" "spray and pray" class, the patatoes will rather play BBs over anything else. Make them work for their success, and they will go, look out for classes which promise easier ways to success. Probably the only way to make cruisers viable and more attractive again.

[SmartassNoob]

Or how about if the game continued to work as normal, but all surplus BBs in the waiting line would get to have BB-only battles? In the future if there's a surplus of any other ship type, they could also have like DD-only battles.

 

Over time, enough surplus players will have had enough BB-only battles that they'll begin to think twice about it. Also, to keep people from quitting the game and others from never having that, maybe there should be a limit per-player for how many BB-only battles they can have in succession. Like maybe 3. And obviously those with less recent BB-only battles would have a higher chance to have that.

[RamirezKurita]

Introducing a hard cap on battleships hides the problem, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Deal with the actual balance and QoL of the ships in the game and the numbers of battleships will naturally fall as players will move to other classes.

[MacFergus]

Need to make CAs and DDs more attractive to play it wasn't just the introduction of the KM line that gave us the BB boom is was also the removal of SF and jap torp nerf which significantly increased the skill needed to play CAs and DDs hence people switched over to BBs and why not there is no negatives with them. 

[SinkTheOthersNotMe]

Ca T8+ are fine.

 

CA/CL (some of them at least) T5 to T7 need some love...............this said I then can stat pad with pensacola and the likes...........hence the reason why I am barely playing BB or DD these days.

[El2aZeR]

17 minutes ago, SmartassNoob said:

Over time, enough surplus players will have had enough BB-only battles that they'll begin to think twice about it.

 

You honestly believe that the current playerbase will get tired of it?

If anything they will demand to be able to specifically queue for BB only games.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

2 hours ago, Vaderan said:

BBs require a skillcap, not a hardcap. Make them as challanging to play, as carriers, and things will be sorted out by themselves. As long as BBs are the "easy to play" "spray and pray" class, the patatoes will rather play BBs over anything else. Make them work for their success, and they will go, look out for classes which promise easier ways to success. Probably the only way to make cruisers viable and more attractive again.

It's not the guns I think but the armour that make BBs strong.

 

Even a bad player takes awhile to kill in a fatty boat. Other classes are simply less forgiving.

[Dampfboot]

They will never limit the number of BBs because that would massively increase waiting times for BB players which are WGs main source of income. As you can see from the balancing decisions since launch of the game over two years ago, anything that can hurt BBs gets nerfed whereas BBs get buffed. Look at Deepwater torpedoes, excellent concept but they decided you cannot switch in battle i.e. no sane DD player will use them (unless you are in a division maybe). They realise this and so decided to force them onto players with the Asia DDs.

[RamirezKurita]

Just now, Dampfboot said:

They will never limit the number of BBs because that would massively increase waiting times for BB players which is WGs main source of income.

 

This statement might be plausible if WG hadn't recently announced that they are limiting battleships to 1 per team in clan battles.

[Tanaka_15]

2 minutes ago, RamirezKurita said:

 

This statement might be plausible if WG hadn't recently announced that they are limiting battleships to 1 per team in clan battles.

Imho they don't want to show just how much op bbs are. This is why they limited them. 

[RamirezKurita]

Just now, Tanaka_15 said:

Imho they don't want to show just how much op bbs are. This is why they limited them. 

 

By limiting them they have not only shown how much of a balance problem they are, they have also implicitly admitted that they won't balance them.

[SmartassNoob]

39 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

 

You honestly believe that the current playerbase will get tired of it?

If anything they will demand to be able to specifically queue for BB only games.

So that's a win-win then. Add a BB-only game mode and automatically move surplus BBs there.

[Tuench]

BBs, or any other class, should be OP to a certain thing. So balance is not to make DD or CL/CA tanks or to reduce the suvivabilty of BBs. Classes should not be equal. So the only thing i came up with was reducing the numbers. 

You know what i mean? BBs should be able to punish cruisers, cruisers schould be able to punish DDs and DDs ofc be able to wreck BBs. Not like it is now that u could use BBs only and could have "nearly" all the things that make other classes special or strong, like hydro, torps, good AA, speed, manouverability, radar... HE 

 

I was joking at some point that the next prem BB we get will have smoke, slowly i have the feeling it could be true. 

[mtm78]

1 hour ago, RamirezKurita said:

Introducing a hard cap on battleships hides the problem, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Deal with the actual balance and QoL of the ships in the game and the numbers of battleships will naturally fall as players will move to other classes.

 

No. 

 

What you want is battleships balanced 1 on 1 with other ships, that is the only way you can create a desired equilibrium naturally by making every option in line with the others. This doesn't fit naval combat, we're not playing unreal tournament where you can make every character the same.

 

Battleships will always need survivability and threat of alpha, and that is what attracts the baddies.

 

And that's fine, as long as there are max 3 per team. Because with less battleships, I will most likely live longer in my cruisers even when I play aggressive in closer support to front lines, and that's what we want right? Fun and engaging gameplay, not kemp island / bush. 

 

edit:

 

7 minutes ago, Tuench said:

BBs, or any other class, should be OP to a certain thing. So balance is not to make DD or CL/CA tanks or to reduce the suvivabilty of BBs. Classes should not be equal. So the only thing i came up with was reducing the numbers. 

 

Basically I got ninja'd while typing my reply and I didn't even refresh the last post prior to hitting the button  

 

 

[Tuench]

i like ninjas, space ninjas ^ ^

[aleksi111]

Quote

Need to make CAs and DDs more attractive to play

^That, but the million dollar question is how?

 

Remember that BB's ruled the waves until air power made all surface ships vulnerable, and thus BB's became extremely expensive fire-support ships.

 

Lowering the number of BB's allowed in game is the most common suggestion, but it just wont work on its own, BB's are just too forgiving and rewarding.

Another problem we have is that most of the player base is quite ignorant of the inner workings of the game, and thus the steps taken to improve CA's and DD's vs BB would have to be pretty dam obvious.

 

Just a few ideas:

-Give 203mm cruisers 30mm upper side armor, thus giving them ability to bait BB's to shooting their sides and getting auto-bounces, this would also help in CA/CL distinction (bow's would still be pennable so straight nose-in would be punished)

-Give most T6-10 cruisers small agility buffs: -1s rudder, -30m turn circle and better engine response, while giving BB's a universal +1km to detection (and maybe +2s rudder) nerf. ((or just remove concealment module from BB's))

-Currently 12k damage done to DD is rewarded more than 12k done to BB. Make BB's an exception of this rule, so that they are rewarded more for shooting at other BB's.

-Give torpedo detection range a ship class modifier; (torpedo detection range, example: torpedo 1.2km base detect  / BB+CV x1.0 / DD x1.2 / CA x1.33.

-Teak the service cost of different classes (quite harshly) thru most of the tiers in order to make BB's much more expensive to run.

-give Non-british Cruisers extremely short duration smoke, just long enough for them to make a 180 turn and some 5-10 sec extra.

 

Example:

I Currently have three Tier 9 Ships that all have the same, fixed service fee. ( either BB player's take the hint and pick another boats, even just to grind credits, or they buy's premium time and camos, for WG is win/win )

                   Current  /  Tweaked

-Freddy:     120.000 / 180.000

-Baltimore: 120.000 / 100.000

-Udaloi:      120.000 / 100.000

 

Let BB's stay as the kings that they actually are, just make operating them cost more.

Note: those -20k for CA's/DD's wont even fully cover a single improved consumable.

[RamirezKurita]

1 minute ago, mtm78 said:

 

No. 

 

What you want is battleships balanced 1 on 1 with other ships, that is the only way you can create a desired equilibrium naturally by making every option in line with the others. This doesn't fit naval combat, we're not playing unreal tournament where you can make every character the same.

 

Battleships will always need survivability and threat of alpha, and that is what attracts the baddies.

 

And that's fine, as long as there are max 3 per team. Because with less battleships, I will most likely live longer in my cruisers even when I play aggressive in closer support to front lines, and that's what we want right? Fun and engaging gameplay, not kemp island / bush. 

 

The options should be equal, but not the same. Balanced, but different. It's possible to balance power levels without simply making everything identical.

 

Battleships can keep their survivability (although I'd argue the lack of plunging fire and the underwater citadels on most of them is making them a bit too survivable these days) and their alpha damage, but they need weaknesses to balance out their strengths. Weaknesses they don't really have, particularly in the upper tiers when they reach 28+knots as standard.

[Krikkio82]

Be cause on competitive 1/7 of BBs are balanced and in random more than 1/3 is OK 
WG BALANCING 

[SmartassNoob]

How about this then as a win-win solution:

 

BBs were in reality extremely powerful and easily able to take on DDs at a rate of 10 to 1. Secondary guns had 10+ km range and were as good as cruiser guns. But in reality they were balanced by being rare. There was always like 20 cruisers and 50 destroyers for each battleship.

 

So how about we let BBs be BBs and possibly give them radar and what not else, but then we limit BBs to something like 2 per team and make it so that you have to play 10 battles in other ships to unlock 1 battle where you play a BB?

[mtm78]

Just now, RamirezKurita said:

 

The options should be equal, but not the same. Balanced, but different. It's possible to balance power levels without simply making everything identical.

 

Battleships can keep their survivability (although I'd argue the lack of plunging fire and the underwater citadels on most of them is making them a bit too survivable these days) and their alpha damage, but they need weaknesses to balance out their strengths. Weaknesses they don't really have, particularly in the upper tiers when they reach 28+knots as standard.

 

So why didn't you say this about carriers? It's the same as battleships, they should be included they are iconic parts of the era. But you can't balance their power in a way which allows unrestricted access to the game ( 1 per team limit on top tiers, 2 on mid/high tiers ). 

 

Yes, survivability is too much on a lot of them, they have tried to get the babies to play more agressive by making their babyboats even tankier, guess what they still don't want to get their paint scratched. I lost a game where I died in 10m in my Yamato, when we had a GCur which was alive at the end of the match. I was top of team with XP, the other guy who was 'hey you dead you noob shut up learn to play' had half my xp. 

[SmartassNoob]

2 minutes ago, mtm78 said:

Yes, survivability is too much on a lot of them, they have tried to get the babies to play more agressive by making their babyboats even tankier, guess what they still don't want to get their paint scratched. I lost a game where I died in 10m in my Yamato, when we had a GCur which was alive at the end of the match. I was top of team with XP, the other guy who was 'hey you dead you noob shut up learn to play' had half my xp. 

That example is not a problem with BBs, it's a problem with the rewards system. If he really was only camping at the back, he should have at best 1/15 of your XP points.

[Capra76]

57 minutes ago, Negativvv said:

It's not the guns I think but the armour that make BBs strong.

 

It's the combination of armour, HP and guns that makes them strong, the only downside is limited mobility that starts to disappear by T8 anyway.

 

Generally speaking, in these kind of games you usually get a tank class, a damage dealer class and a healer class; in this game you get all 3 rolled into one with the other classes left to be, erm..... I'm not sure really.