BB AP vs DD, and other damage effects rebalance ideas [originally "WoWs becoming more like WoT???"]

[KarmaQU_EU]

 

Grrr accidental complete-spoiler post again. Would someone mind to please teach me how to properly use the [ spoiler ] [ / spoiler ] function without formatting the whole post into something I can't even edit?

 

Update: Main idea posts here.

 

 

 

I mostly focused on the "BB AP" and "CV change (tentative)".

 

Because it reminded me of WoT. While I did not have an extended experience of WoT, from what experience I had of it, I did not enjoy it. Same with Total War: Arena. (WoWp was ok because it dealt with planes, and was bit different.)

WoT fighting was mostly characterized by either getting pens and having stuff work out, or not. Games were less about strategy and more if there were enough people on your flank to out-grind them (this problem slightly less sever in WoWs). And the arty, it was mostly useless, while barely fun.

 

If the "CV overhaul" comes through as I interpret it, it means turning CV into a generally-accessible class, that does some things in a game, but not much, will not take much skill, but will not have much influence in battle or be op either. Just like arty. But it would still be called "sky cancer" because while they can nerf its capabilities, they cannot easily nerf its toxicity, and simplifying down the class (via taking out the "logic" behind it) will actually make the player-to-player direct power interactions feel all the more more raw and undiluted. Just like WoT arty. (Though to WG's credit, they did say with no ambiguity that they want it to be "cheerful, interesting". But which is the polar-opposite of arty as I know it.)

 

If the "AP vs DD nerf" comes through as I interpret it, it means WoWs games would have the WoT feel of "sudden armour encounter", aka. sudden surprise death or completely useless, not even vision. It means a BB could literally watch helplessly as a DD waltzed up and torped it in the face, because its AP now only does 40% (max) damage to a DD instead of the usual numbers. When this happens in the lower tiers it's "meh" for the DD, and not very fun for the BB. But in higher tiers, with higher stakes, just knowing that there is this hard-switch mechanic in place, really takes out the immersion and befitting logic of ship types. I know there's a "light tank perma-kiting around a heavy tank" kind of logic, and I do not like it for WoWs. Turning naval combat into micro-kiting is a huge trivialization and thus disrespect of the context, not to mention danger of breaking immersion and collapsing the logic of the game into merely "a game". That kind of small-smarts, trivial and frustrating mechanic design really has no place in WoWs.

 

Furthermore, trying to redesign WoWs in "feel" and logic of WoT is overlapping with WoT, and competing with the same playerbase. That's bad.

 

I played WoWs and liked it precisely because it was different from WoT, as far as possible. I am ok with WG using their experience in map design and gameplay funneling from WoT, but I dread if they took the "WoT feeling" into WoWs. It would be killing a lot of possibility and potential in WoWs to be different, to be more, to be better as a designed game, and more adhering to the context. While tanks were mass-produced by the thousands in the war, these ships were mostly all but unique, having their own names and stories. This is so fundamentally different on so many levels, it is a wonder that two separate games made of them could even be so similar.

As for WoWp, I had already written a long time ago about how it too has a different "feel" brought about by its context, and gameplay induced from that context, though not to greatest potential either.

 

And that is the point. WoWs has potential and strengths that WoWp and WoT never could, due to their topical nature. In simpler words, there are things WoWs could do, that WoT, even WoWp, even TW:A, could never hope to do. (Thought perhaps they have their own possibilities) If the WG reaction to WoWs is "more control, more nerf, more rigidity, more WoT and classic-WG design" into it, then the game really will die this time. If they take out the coherence of the gameplay via hard-counter mechanics criss-crossing in-game to frustrate players, if they nerf any class that was a bit unique and interesting into "sky-cancer arty with no presence", if they ignore the nature of the very context the game draws from, the games would be tasteless, bland, and very much the opposite of "cheerful, interesting", to the gamers of this age.

 

______________________________________________________________________

 

Tl;DR (what did I say before about my Tl;DRs?)

 

WG should consider, when something needs a nerf, to "buff everything else instead", or holistically raise the game via more robust core game systems, more all-compatible gameplay, more flexible yet strong balance, instead of forcefully sterilizing with prejudice, that which makes the game unique and interesting in the process of nerfing it all to the ground. 

 

#Never forget#Kitakami#Shimakaze#(And a lot of things to do with CVs and Cruisers in general)(like stealth fire (and fire in general). While it was a bit op, WG's solution was instead to nerf it into total non-existence instead of finding ways to balance around it or integrate it into a more compatible and interesting game, or make the mechanic itself more interesting and layered, yet still intuitive and even fun to play, for all age ranges and styles etc.)

 

As I expressed before, I for one would be very impressed if WG could use the opportunity of CV overhaul to steer the game in a new development direction, in preparation for continuous and steady improvement. Not just "so we will try, and you - wait for news, but later.", what did I say about WG and their "try"? But now I know a state even beyond concern, and that which is genuine alarm. That is if they are trying, to not 'improve' this, but instead to ""improve"" this, in the style of WoT, making it more like WoT.

 

Boy I'm fun at parties.

 

 

 

 

Further Update: 

CV section refer to here:

 

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

only bad part on wows is , BOT  players , and bad teams ^^, on rest , its arent  that bad

[Vaderan]

Obviously, this "BB-AP vs. DD" thingy completly went below my radar. In my opinion, a +/- 1 matchmaking would be a huge improvement to the game. On the other hand, i cannot remember a single time i would agree with something from Sub-octavian in the past, so nothing new here.

 

My two thoughts to "BB-AP vs DD": in alpha, DDs had citadells for a long time, and BBs were, compared to today, pretty damn accurate. It was like: DD ambushes BB successfully or chooses an approach vector, opposite to where the BB guns were aiming at: yolo rush and torpedo-derp in the face, with a good chance to instantly kill the BB. BB being aware or DD choosing the wrong approach vector, BB could fire on DD and delete the DD with 1-2 successfull hits. If BB failed, DD had at least ~30 seconds of "save" approach, besides the pretty effective secondary batteries of BBs during earlyer alpha.

Some could consider this a fair trade, others would claim, that "DDs are the BB-counter and require buffs/BB nerfs". Deleting DDs with 2 successfull hits wasn´t considered fair or fun, while deleting a BB with a well aimed torpedo attack seemed legit.

 

The result was: BB accuracy nerf, secondary nerf, (with a slight compensation by making BBs more maneuverable), while removing the citadells from DDs, replacing it with a "50% instead of 33% damage from penetrating shells into center mass" mechanic. I think, torpedoes got changed aswell, more/better visibility/detection range, and decrease of speed. So, BBs received basically a 50% potential damage per shell nerf and a drastical reduction of "chance to hit", while becoming "better" in "dodging" torpedoes.

The result was the almost complete withdrawl from BB players from brawling/close combat, disengaging from areas of high torpedoe thread. The founding of the nowadays "camper meta".

Now, "deleting" a DD with 3-4 shells of one salvo (if RNG was with the BB player) wasn´t considered fun and fair again. I mean, 3-4 hits on a DD with current RNG is a miracle on some BBs, and it might take aswell 2-4 salvos or more, depending on players skill, RNG and DD´s dodging skills, but who cares. Since DDs are BB counter, it´s okay.

 

Now, the impact of AP shells on DDs gets further reduced. Pretty sure, this cannot be considered a straight buff to BBs. We have to wait for the numbers, but obviously, 5-8 (AP) shells on center mass required to stop a DD seems legit. An equally tiered cruiser might barely survive 3-4 hits of that quality, thanks to his citadell mechanic, but hey...

I can somewhat understand the protest about BBs not having to switch to HE shells to stop DDs, but on the other hand: who can blame the BBs? Thanks to WG´s adjustments to DDs and HE and the captain-skills tree, HE has become pointless to use against DDs. Damage is much lower, and who cares about module damage, when any DD with a 3 skillpoints captain can basically ignore critical hits to engines and rudder?

 

So, in WG logics, BBs must be put into a situation, where switching to HE to effectively stop a DD becomes essential. This means, a BB either has to "waste" his first round with "useless" AP on a charging DD, wait 25-35 seconds to reload HE, hope for the DD still being somewhere in shooting range, fire, hope for RNG, be satisfied with 70-80% missing shells and the rest hitting for ~0-40% damage on the still charging DD, wait another 25-35 seconds, watch the DD coming dangerously close (maybe too close), fire again, pray to RNGesus and either kill the DD or watch him survive to derp a deadly salvo of torpedoes straight into the BBs face. Even if the BB kills the DD with it´s third salvo, the torpedoes might already be on their way...

 

TL;DR: putting BBs into a position where it might now take 3-5+ slavos (with a slight chance of reducing it to 1-2 salvos, of course, depending on RNG) to take down a DD, while the DD might still simply require one salvo of torpedoes is completly fine, fair and balanced. In addition, indirectly putting DDs in a position where they can sustain more direct hits from a BB than an eqaully tiered cruiser, seem fine aswell. By the way, will the AP impact on DDs only count for BB-AP, or for cruiser/DD AP aswell?

 

Instead of coming around with a change that ruins balance and screws the ingame meta even more (does anybody seriously beleave, that making BBs even more vulnerable to DDs will improve the camper meta?), WG should have simply taken a more historically accurate approach: change AP in a way, it becomes ineffective against cruisers and DDs, but more effective against BBs, and improve HE in a way it replaces AP in anti DD and anti-cruiser meta. Something like BB AP overpenning cruisers and DDs in 90% of connecting hits, while HE becomes the ammunition to (exclusively) score citadells on cruisers, carriers and (yes!) DDs. Change "causing fire" meta to "requires penetrations", and AP vs BBs becomes viable for cruisers and DDs aswell, while the ridiculous HE spam of BBs vs BBs gets removed aswell.

Would be more work for WG, but would adress several issues at once: switching ammo would become essential for all classes. AP becomes more dangerous for BBs, while AP spike damage to other classes basically gets removed. DDs, cruisers and CVs receive  a better survivability. HE againt soft targets becomes viable.

[Tanaka_15]

"Pretty sure, this cannot be considered a straight buff to BBs" - answer is simple, BBs ned a nerf not buff this is nerf to bbs and good. BBS need a nerfs. 

[Snowman79]

How about the AP bombs? Getting wiped in a full hp tier 8 BB by 2 squads of tier 8 AP bombers flying through t6 and 7 cruiser AA bubble to get to you and don't giving a damn is fun... It doesn't matter if you stay with escorts, turn, focus AA on one squad or another, deploy fighter planes...the result is the same... 1 or 2 planes shot down at best and you getting wiped...much fun indeed...Feels like fighting against the old arty in WoT...

[Vaderan]

22 minutes ago, Tanaka_15 said:

"Pretty sure, this cannot be considered a straight buff to BBs" - answer is simple, BBs ned a nerf not buff this is nerf to bbs and good. BBS need a nerfs. 

But BBs only get buffed! Always! Any time! WG cannot do anything but buff BBs. Everybody says so! BBs never gets nurfed! Because BBs OP! Always! A single BB can oneshot anything! Including the planet! But DDs weakest class in game! Because DDs cannot do anything! They are detected at 20km, have RNG so bad, they cannot hit a barn from the inside, turn like bricks and are totally not historical accurate, and whenever a BB shows up in like 6km range, poor DD gets steamroll trollolloll oneshotted instagib detonated stuff!

 

Whoever might find hints of sarcasm or typos might keep them ;)

[Culiacan_Mexico]

2 hours ago, Vaderan said:

So, in WG logics, BBs must be put into a situation, where switching to HE to effectively stop a DD becomes essential.

You mean.. forced to choose the correct ammo type if you want to do max damage?

[Exocet6951]

Funny thing is that I've recently stopped using cruisers as offensive tools, and started only playing T10 cruisers with ridiculous range, like the Moskva.

I stopped going for objectives, stopped trying to play for the team, stopped being distracted with silly things like actually fighting, and instead started sniping 22.5km away, look at the minimap to look at where the teams go.
The funny thing is that I've lost 5 games so far, and everytime I lost is because the team had 0 caps and all the ships without 400mm of armor and 90k HP trying to play the objective died, while the enemy team pushed.
 

 

So you're asking me if wows is becoming more like wot.
I can tell you perfectly honestly that it's already exactly like it, with 80% of all players just sitting back farming some damage, perfectly content with spamming battle after battle going to the same places over and over again, waiting for minutes to deal damage so subpar and useless that those words become massive understatements.

 

 

I see this game currently, and just have flashbacks of wot games where dummies in heavy tanks just sit 300m away from each other pew pewing pointlessly, then all immediately changing their focus to instantly nail that poor bastard in a light tank or medium tank trying to actually play the map, only to then return to being ****ing pointless and screaming that OP arty hit them (for the first time that match after 5 minutes of camping), and it's what's making them camp.

 

It's the exactly same complaints and development, with even the RN BBs taking a page from the Japanese heavy playbook and having annoying to damage tanks that just spamming high caliber HE to pummel other people into submission with no skill required.

 

Honestly, I'm half expecting WG to release the Waffenkreuzer Z-100 with a 406mm gun that reloads in 5 seconds flat, part of a "sekret soviet archive" meme.
 

[Profilus]

2 hours ago, Vaderan said:

So, in WG logics, BBs must be put into a situation, where switching to HE to effectively stop a DD becomes essential. This means, a BB either has to "waste" his first round with "useless" AP on a charging DD, wait 25-35 seconds to reload HE, hope for the DD still being somewhere in shooting range, fire, hope for RNG, be satisfied with 70-80% missing shells and the rest hitting for ~0-40% damage on the still charging DD, wait another 25-35 seconds, watch the DD coming dangerously close (maybe too close), fire again, pray to RNGesus and either kill the DD or watch him survive to derp a deadly salvo of torpedoes straight into the BBs face. Even if the BB kills the DD with it´s third salvo, the torpedoes might already be on their way...

In my little DDplayer head i don't mind if BB blaps me with AP at my minimum detection range(to defend himself against yolo runs at tier 8+), but i do mind if it happens at 15+km range.

[SV_Kompresor]

I don't know....nerf BB AP on DDs and give them an inbuilt expert loader or something

[Wildf1re]

21 minutes ago, domen3 said:

I don't know....nerf BB AP on DDs and give them an inbuilt expert loader or something

Just nerf ranges to brawling range - no camping possible if you wanna do some damage 

[FishDogFoodShack]

This devolved so quickly from, "I don't like the direction the game is going." into, "BBs are not strong enough." it is staggering.

Kinda curious what OP thinks of current iteration of Asashio and Zeppelin, if only for some cheap laughs. AP vs dds is borked atm, 1 shell hit should never do 10k to a ship with no cit and 15k HP by way of bouncing around inside the model. It is a bug, plain and simple, and bugs need fixing.

[El2aZeR]

The CV part is hilarious.

Quote

* excessive influence on the fight,                                                                         = so I guess they're going to reduce the potential influence a CV has on a match, which is primarily spotting
* a huge skill gap and complexity of training,                                                     = dumbing down the class, which will inevitably increase the amount of potential influence a CV has on a match
* a huge gap in air defense and protection from AB (all or nothing),             = narrowing down this gap will mean that the damage potential of CVs will skyrocket, increasing match influence
* the possibility of total roflstomp (?)(especially at high tiers).                      = do the points above not lead to more roflstomp potential?

The things they're trying to fix are in total contradiction to each other.

 

I'm also sure these guys thought +/-2 MM is totally fine.

Spoiler

 

If I had to make a prediction right now it'd be that CVs are going to turn into a hilarious damage dealing only class with extremely little team utility, turning them into the toxic class everyone believes them to be.

[wilkatis_LV]

Quote

AP vs DD
(..) we are really against that this class does not bother switching at all shells depending on the target class, tearing off a quarter or a third of the hp from the destroyer with one successfully fired shell.

Well I'm sorry if I wont bother spending 30 f-ing seconds to swap from AP to HE just to hope that the same DD will still be spotted those 30s later AND I will still be in position to fire at him. I'll unload whatever I have loaded and that's it.

 

You want me to switch amo for that shot? Give me an actual chance to do it.

 

Normal Expert Loader would take that down to 15s - still far too long, and I have much better places where to spend that 1 captains skillpoint

Seagulls (John Doe or whatever you are renaming him as) EL drops that down to 7.5s (something like 6.6s with the MBM3 mounted) - and hell yeah, the one BB where I have this ability I will (and I do) switch to HE for that one shot against the DD. Most of those 7s will be spent by getting my guns on target anyway, perfectly fine with it.

 

30s reload each time and you expect me to wait all that time to maybe get a shot off at the sneakiest ship you can find?

 

This is a simple case of go shove a fork up where the sun doesn't shine

 

On 2/27/2018 at 6:42 PM, FishDogFoodShack said:

AP vs dds is borked atm, 1 shell hit should never do 10k to a ship with no cit and 15k HP by way of bouncing around inside the model.

So BB AP needs a nerf because of a damage bug where ANY shell (well, any AP shell, not sure about HE) fired from ANY ship hitting ANY target exists? Whoa, that's some next level logic right there

 

If I remember correctly highest AP dmg in the game is on Missouri / Iowa / Montana (as they use the same gun) at 13 500 potential dmg per shell. That means 1350 overpen / 4500 pen. Your 10k from one shell is only possible due to a bug which isn't limited to "BB firing at a DD".

 

And as for the "atm" part - it has never changed, BB AP has interacted with DDs in this exact way since day 1. What has changed is that DDs seem get spotted more often and most BBs have finally figured out they can actually fire at the DD.

[aboomination]

Quote

we are really against that this class does not bother switching at all shells depending on the target class

 

AP nerf will be a RN buff, you heard it here first 

[Arrive_Alive]

5 hours ago, El2aZeR said:

The CV part is hilarious.

The things they're trying to fix are in total contradiction to each other.

 

I'm also sure these guys thought +/-2 MM is totally fine.

  Hide contents

 

If I had to make a prediction right now it'd be that CVs are going to turn into a hilarious damage dealing only class with extremely little team utility, turning them into the toxic class everyone believes them to be.

right now they can deal hilarious damage while having this great utility. so clearly a nerf, but a needed one?

[El2aZeR]

41 minutes ago, Marble_Eyes said:

right now they can deal hilarious damage while having this great utility. so clearly a nerf, but a needed one?

 

If the goal of WG is to fix the issues they've arrived at CVs will become far more reliable damage dealers with less team utility and, to top it all off, require less skill to play. I quite frankly don't see where the nerf is. How is it a nerf when a CV would be able to attack you regardless of class and amount of AA?

You know, contrary to the current system where you have to be completely out of position, not a cruiser/DD with DFAA, not have a partial/full AA build depending on your class and/or be HE spammed to oblivion for a CV to even consider attacking you. And quite rightfully so for the most part.

 

The all or nothing approach in terms of AA, aka a CV will either deal crippling damage or lose all his planes, is there to keep the damage and overall capabilities of CVs balanced. It can be improved upon for sure, but to do away with it would make CVs far more influential on a match than they are now. Lowering spotting capability and skill requirements would just put the cherry on top of the cake, creating a class that is not only capable of killing everything regardless of situation, but has in fact a singular focus on doing so while completely disregarding their team in this team game along with being even easier to play than it is now.

 

So yeah, where's the nerf? As a CV player I'm quite frankly delighted, my cruiser/BB/DD sides however are currently busy beating my CV self back into submission.

[Oppressor_]

Mate, every time I click your thread my mouse scroll gets REKT!

 

As per usual, have not read it, but you get +1 for the effort. 

[KarmaQU_EU]

Adhering to my proposed concept of "if something is op, don't nerf it, buff everything else", I propose the following ideas to be considered in whole or individually, in terms of balancing AP vs HE usage, with special consideration for BBs against DDs (visualize them in a BB vs DD scenario):

 

1. Rework fire mechanics.

2. Rework heal and damage-con mechanics.

3. Rework armour mechanics.

 

Examples:

1.

Fire burning damage is partially moderated by shell caliber. Generally, large caliber shells add a flat damage over lower-caliber shell fires. (Thus fire chance will have to be balanced across the board. But this will provide incentive for large-caliber HE usage. Specific caliber-increase may vary per ship for balance purposes, similar to the HE 1/6 pen vs 1/4 pen.) 

 

Total number of Fires possible on a ship is based on ship size. 4 fires max default for all ships is no longer the case. Ex. BBs have up to 7 fires slots, while DDs only 3. CVs only 4 but each fire deals double. (Thus fire damage and heal and damage-con mechanics will have to be balanced.)

 

The effects of Fire will be reworked. It will do less damage in the beginning, but more damage as time passes. Total damage is unchanged.

 

Fires will have a chance to disable modules, cause other fires, or cause "critical effects" at the terminal stage, such as even partial or complete ammunition detonation (percentage chunk of remaining HP, never all of it). A critical effect is not guaranteed to happen, and only 1 such "critical" effect may occur per fire, max. Fires started from a critical effect will not incur a critical effect of its own. If a fire burns its whole duration without being damage-conned, it will apply a "burned out" buff reducing fire damage, or even overall damage, similar to the "blackened hull section" effect reducing further damage (even from torps). Notifications will be shown.

 

Repeat fires attempted to be applied to the same "fire slot" will not fail, but instead temporarily enhance the fire effect, such as raise chance of critical, increase damage, or duration. Notification will be shown.

 

2.1

Damage con is no longer "1-button totality", but "micro-partitioned". The exact method of micro-partition is open to ideas. In general, the concept is that damage-con can have "charge", and fixing relevant types of damage will consume appropriate amounts or even type, of charge. It can still be used similar to now, one-button and game auto-distributes charge to repair. Or can be more tactical, and "manual repair" or use preset priorities rules for one-button damage con.
 

Damage-con "slots' can also vary by ship, just like fire slots. E.g. BBs might have more slots but slower application. DDs might have a single or few slots, but higher efficiency. Etc. 

 

Passive vs Active damage-con mechanics may be considered. Lots of design possibilities. Appropriate captain skills/equipment/flag modifiers as necessary etc. 

 

2.2 

As of now we know that HE and fire damage and flood is most easily healed. AP damage slightly less, with citadel damage impossible. Torpedo damage varies.

 

To make it more interesting, tactical, balanced, and realistic, the heal mechanics will be reworked. (A sec, lemme consult my notes. For the first time in 2 years I will open the notes and consult the ideas within because I remember a sections specifically addressing damage differences.

 

Er, gimme some more time, it's very long.

Er, some more time. It's paperback-level.

.....

.....

.....

Thank god I had a table of contents ...

..../

Ah here.)

 

In short: (... ok. in "short")

Flooding:

Ship size, ship speed and ocean surface conditions, can effect flooding speed (not damage). 

Flooding can also cause critical disabling like fire, on the appropriate modules (mostly underwater).

Flooding can cause both HP damage (straight-up structural integrity loss as we know it) and "flooding" damage, with total damage divided unevenly, but significantly biased towards "flooding damage".

Flooding has no fixed duration, unlike fire. Damage-con balances work to address this.

HP damage causes the red-bar of your HP to drop like normal damage, abeit much slower than fire damage. "Flooding damage" "floods" your HP bar, starting from the other side (right side), with a deep blue "flooding bar" that competes with your HP for space, within your HP bar. Imagine it like poison, poisoning your HP bar. Flooding damage "winds up" faster in empty spaces of the HP bar, but pushes much slower against still healthy (red-filled) sections of the HP bar. But it will push, relentlessly. Overlapping flooding and HP sections will show dark blue. Flooding can be stopped, but the flooded bar section will remain. Damage-con also works to cause this bar to drop (reduce towards the right side), both passively non-stop (similar to pumps pumping out the water) and actively if you have charge to spare.

HP cannot be repaired past "flooded" sections. This is another reason for modular micro-partitioned damage-con and damage-repair consumables, for the excess heal to not be wasted, and players will no longer have to "save" a heal for when it is at max repairable damage. HP can be continued to be repaired once the flooding is pushed back.

Flooding causes reduced ship max speed depending on flooding level. However, ship will also sink lower beneath the water, visibly. (Underwater citadels ftw.)

(There were more complex interactions between internal fires and flooding and things such as enclosed fumes but I will leave all those out as they are not suitable for current iteration of WoWs. I think this is enough on flooding already.)

 

Fire:

Fire damage differs with external fires and internal. External fires may become internal. Possible for variation in "fire slot" slot types.

Original notes mentioned to reduce fire damage on top of making total fire damage distribution more concentrated towards end of duration. I guess it was too op.

Oh, and intentional flooding of magazines possible if fires reach critical and this critical is imminent partial or complete magazine detonation (of course it won't happen instantly and without warning to the player ... that's bad design). Glad I found this point. So, I suppose it will add a set-amount of flooding-damage, rapidly, with amount dependent on magazine size? Ye. The turret will be (temporarily) disabled though, as realistic. Still, a small chunk of flooding damage is preferable to massive straight-HP damage. And, as bonus, you will  significantly be less likely to detonate, like magic, if you have even one flooded turret! And it even lowers your citadel! (Tactical flooding incoming XD)

Oh, and also almost forgot to mention, if flooding damage completely overlaps HP, you sink. Even if you still have "normal" HP left. =D

That's about it. Most fire mechanics were introduced on the top, and rest of the notes mainly deal with unintroduced mechanics or mechanics that are not suitable to current iteration of WoWs.

 

HE and AP:

Mostly builds on the WG system of "blackened hull" mechanic and section-based HP. "Armour" was factored in too, to provide something for the AP to work against, ... but I don't think it's applicable to current iteration of WoWs. Stick with what I have above, for now.

 

 

 

3.

This armour idea was not from notes, but specifically for current WoWs, similar to section 1 (only section 2 I briefly consulted notes, and I'm pretty sure I consulted the wrong section because of my horrendous table-of-contents skills).

Hmm, on second thought, I think I'd better stop, enough things to digest even from sections 1 and 2. Besides, I don't really like what was originally planned for section 3 ... it's a gross under-representation, if I attempt to make a watered-down version of the notes concept to fit current WoWs. It's just not right. Fire and Flooding in symbolic representation can work, but WG and their armour system is actually pretty detailed. Should not throw that away.

(And balanced enough too, with the "blackened hull" mechanic. Maybe work on that a bit instead.)
 

 

 

P.S. Lemme go back and highligh (bold) some key words to make reading the text-wall easier.

P.S.S. Oh almost forgot to write about heal mechanics as promised in section 2. Ah well, enough to digest. Leave that for another time. It's also in a separate section of the notes from the damage-effects above.

P.S.S.S. But I did write a single sentence about how heal should be redesigned to not make the player have to "save" it for max. For instance, it will only consume a corresponding amount of charge to repair the available amount, but still incur a minimum cooldown. Best of both worlds.

[KarmaQU_EU]

Errr ... so I haven't even touched on CV mechanics or actual AP mechanics even despite yet another "long" post. 

.... Sorry, now I know what some of you mean XD ....

 

But in all seriousness, while on the surface they do not directly deal with the mechanics in question, their deeper influence on the game, besides introducing more features to balance with, and around, indirectly helps to control or shape the influence of the "problematic" mechanics in question, to forms we prefer (aka more balanced, fun, "interesting" and "cheerful".)

This is what I mean, when I say I wished WG would "buff everything else", and didn't just "nerf into non-existence" everything that looks funny. To "softly" guide the shape of the game, instead of introducing "hard-switch counters". (though they might still be warranted for particularly dire situations, which is not now)

 

P.S. To any WG employee reading this, the above points might help the devs if they were conveyed to them. Though since they are not very well presented or very conclusive I will not link to anyone in particular this time, but still, if you are reading this, the intention is in there.

 

For the rest of you, chirp in as usual if you please.

[KarmaQU_EU]

Update:

To balance off the new features of damage-dealing effects, with possibly more to come, a defensive feature is introduced.

 

"The blackened hull effect" now reduces noticeably more damage when activated. It will also significantly reduce "partial" damage such as from Fire, AP overpens, and external HE shattering. 

 

This means for a DD who took a lot of damage, it will now take trivial damage from AP overpens on its blackened hull sections. So, BB AP is not straight-up nerfed against DDs, but "discouraged", in the relevant situations, softly, via a mechanic.

 

The way this buff to the "blackened hull" effect is not overpowered for other ships, is that it does not reduced internal damage, and does not reduce citadel damage.

This means BBs can still be burned down, Cruisers can still be citadelled, and DDs will still take large-caliber HE damage that can penetrate to where their citadels should be, even when blackened.

[wilkatis_LV]

43 minutes ago, KarmaQU_EU said:

"The blackened hull effect" now reduces noticeably more damage when activated. It will also significantly reduce "partial" damage such as from Fire, AP overpens, and external HE shattering. 

Directly increasing BB survivability (especially against CA/Ls), which is absolutely not needed, thus most likely that idea won't go through anyway.

 

Back to the drawing board

 

 

[Infiriel]

42 minuty temu, KarmaQU_EU napisał:

 

"The blackened hull effect" now reduces noticeably more damage when activated. It will also significantly reduce "partial" damage such as from Fire, AP overpens, and external HE shattering. 

Once you deplete BB`s bow, and superstructure (and maybe aft, if he`s the usual potato), there will be no real way to damage him anymore.
And i don`t think many CA`s can pen main armor belt of BB`s at distances allowing for said CA to survive without praying to RNGesus.
So this would effectively buff BB`s - I`m not even surprised.

 

You might want to fix the reasons why BB`s can fire on DD`s in the first place.
Like Radar, and hydro going through islands (which it doesn`t do IRL), or concealment on radar CA`s allowing them to radar as soon as they are spotted, or AA so bad that CV can hover planes over you for entire game.

[Zen71_sniper]

On 2/28/2018 at 12:13 AM, wilkatis_LV said:

@Sub_Octavian

Well I'm sorry if I wont bother spending 30 f-ing seconds to swap from AP to HE just to hope that the same DD will still be spotted those 30s later AND I will still be in position to fire at him. I'll unload whatever I have loaded and that's it.

 

You want me to switch amo for that shot? Give me an actual chance to do it.

 

....

30s reload each time and you expect me to wait all that time to maybe get a shot off at the sneakiest ship you can find?

 

This is a simple case of go shove a fork up where the sun doesn't shine

 

If you are not out of position and aware of the battle situation, you would anticipate a DD and be prepared. Simple as that....

 

As it is, DDs get obliterated with random shots at 15k. Do you think that is right? What counter play do you propose to that? Looking at your stats, you are a decent player, but this is pure and simple BBaby whine. at its worst.

 

HF and GL

[KarmaQU_EU]

On 3/1/2018 at 11:16 AM, wilkatis_LV said:

Directly increasing BB survivability (especially against CA/Ls), which is absolutely not needed, thus most likely that idea won't go through anyway.

 

Back to the drawing board

 

On 3/1/2018 at 11:45 AM, Infiriel said:

Once you deplete BB`s bow, and superstructure (and maybe aft, if he`s the usual potato), there will be no real way to damage him anymore.
And i don`t think many CA`s can pen main armor belt of BB`s at distances allowing for said CA to survive without praying to RNGesus.
So this would effectively buff BB`s - I`m not even surprised.

 

You might want to fix the reasons why BB`s can fire on DD`s in the first place.
Like Radar, and hydro going through islands (which it doesn`t do IRL), or concealment on radar CA`s allowing them to radar as soon as they are spotted, or AA so bad that CV can hover planes over you for entire game.

Well to be fair the notes version is slightly biased towards BBs because they will be "worth" more as a target under that iteration of tier system, yet still balanced. (by "costing" more)

 

However, the counterbalance is the introduction of the new 'Flooding mechanics', and extra fire slots on BBs.

 

Flooding slows the BB down, more noticeably than "smaller" ships, thus it becomes an easier target. Because of the way pumps work, BBs will have a harder time "clearing" the flooded portion of the HP bar. Because, the flooding happens percentage-wise, but the pumps work numerically. This means BBs will have a much harder time clearing flooded portions than "smaller ships" with less base-HP numbers.

 

Extra fire slots means even with "blackened hull" effect, it will still take non-trivial amounts of damage from lots of fires, and the rework of partitioned damage-con means it can't one-button refresh oneself to do away with every debuff at once.

Fire-slot type in external/internal means some of these fires are "internal" fires doing massive damage and causing "critical" debilitating effects. BBs have more total fire slots thus more internal fire slots, obviously, and more fire slots can quickly overwhelm even a monster BB, with many types of terminal stage "critical" debuffs.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Radar and Hydro is another topic, quite complex, maybe will look into it later if still interest and time. CVs, WG said they are working on them. But DDs should be fired upon when they are warranted to be fired upon. That is only fair. If you want to make it "more" fair though, buff the smoke-generator mechanic, such as via partitioned-charges as similar to the proposed heal and damage-con. This will give DDs more freedom to use smoke tactically and preemptively.

 

But, they shouldn't get bloop-deleted because of so. This is where the "blackened hull" effect shines. Even in current WoWs, it has managed to save many a DD from death, such as when taking multiple-torpedo hits. Repeat torpedo hits on blackened-hull sections significantly reduce consequent damage thus making it fair, but not brutal.

 

If this logic was adopted to large-caliber AP pens as well, this means the DD might only take a few hundred damage per AP pen, instead of 1250, when and only when it is already severely hurt. 

The further generalizing of "blackened hull" effect to be relevant for all ship types means ships will still have the "meaty" sections during early and mid game where damage effects will do the meaty damage numbers we are used to (and give us meaty rewards), but be less punishing when ships are already severely hurt such as during late-game, or on a ship who ran into some bad luck. I personally believe this direction is healthy for the game, and more enjoyable for the players, if adopted.

 

To put it into perspective, it means in this new meta, "execution ammo types" will be different from "damage-dealing ammo types". And which will vary depending on ships. In other words, it will be just as easy to damage a ship, but slightly harder to kill it. 

 

DDs when blackened will be less threatened by repeated hits and large-caliber AP, and even HE, if the HE hit "fodder armour" sections (tips of the bow and stern, for example). (in other words, because DDs don't have citadels, all sections count as external).

They will need direct-hits on non-superstructure sections (aka. very well aimed center-of-mass non-overpen hits), or rapid hits from lighter weapons (cough* including secondaries *cough) to kill. Or, just ask the friendly cruiser to use HE.

 

Cruisers will be less threatened by fodder-type HE (such as from other cruisers) when blackened, and non-direct AP hits on fodder-armour sections (antenna, bow and stern tips etc) causing overpen effect. They will need internal-damaging hits, such as AP-in-citadel, or direct-hits (HE which pens some kind of armour) on critical (internal) sections to effectively damage.

 

BBs will be less threatened by the direct ticking damage of fires when blackened, but the critical debilitating debuffs will linger, and because their external armour is now fodder, they are but damage piñatas which can be slightly more easily taken down with direct hits from all shell types, compared to when they have "impenetrable" armour which block out 100% of all damage except pens. In other words, when blackened, BBs actually take more damage from all sources except torpedoes and fire/flooding. Hits which would have splintered, both HE and AP, but still partially penetrate, will now deal tickling damage of 30, 60, or a few 100s, instead of 0. Hits which ricochet or completely shatter will still do 0. Thus, they can be grinded down even by the smallest DD shell, on hits anywhere, except on the most armoured sections such as the main armour belt. 

In other words, BBs become "softer" after blackened, but will still require direct "execution" to take down, instead of "fuzzy" "unfair" damage such as fires.

 

P.S. If partitioned-smoke becomes too op, consider making overpen-but-armed shells do tickling damage if they explode in the water beside the DD. In reality, this damage is not tickling, but the equivalent of a DWT if used on a DD.

 

Update:

Forgot to mention that flooding slots are unlimited, but flooding speed is constant, and flooding will continue to occur as long as there is even 1 flooding slot active. Flooding slots differ in large slots and small slots, with large slots taking more damage-con to repair. Flooding speed, however, does not change depending on slots, but on HP state.