Missions and Challenges - Community Feedback

[MBrandis]

I really like most of the scenarios, but all too often I feel as if I am at the mercy of RNG when it comes to the opponents I face. 

For example, in the "US Super Battleship" and "Design your H-class" scenarios I faced wildly differing enemies.

I will just stick to the "Us Super Battleship" one to describe my frustrations. 

 

First battle - enemy has 3 15-inchers, with one 25 knot and two 31 knot ships. So I decide to go back to the drawing board and focus on a ship that has 15" gun protection and a top speed of 32 knots so I can stay within range of them. Except....next battle I am facing 16" guns armed behemoths that go at 27 knot max.  

For scenarios that are already quite hard I would think it would be better if the AI could not just pick and chose all the time. 

 

EDIT: Obviously when it comes to a campaign randomly generated enemies are fine, but in scenarios they just feel out of place

Edited March 7, 2020 by MBrandis

[madham82]

Suggestion: Missions which state to sink percentages of enemy fleet/keep alive allied ships should be changed to sink/save X number of ships.

Reason: Currently percentage base numbers are vague, especially when the number of enemy ships does not translate into whole numbers of ships. The only time percentage should be used is for player built ships, which could vary depending on funds. The enemy numbers are always fixed, as is the number of allied ships. 

Example: Sink 70% of enemy fleet, keep 40% of allied fleet alive. Enemy fleet consists of 4 ships, and allied fleet of 3. 

I have played multiple missions where I wasn't sure how many ships I needed to sink/could lose and still win. 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Just finished the new set of missions.

I don't claim to have done them absolutely optimally, but apparently I did them good enough.

German Raiding Squadron.

I went for More Funds. You really don't get much money on this one. I think this scenario might demonstrate more than any other just how expensive high-tech components are. Trying to reach the magic 39 knots for the maximum Target Fast Speed bonus will inevitably bankrupt you. So I went the opposite direction with a bunch of unarmored minimum-cost CLs. An easy win, though it took a while due to the sheer number of enemy transports.

Dreadnought vs. Heavy Cruisers.

I picked More Funds. 12" guns are still favored by the accuracy table. Not much to say here, you can easily out-gun and out-armor them so just don't get torpedoed.

Wounded Beast.

I went for the guns. Despite the briefing, your BB will be pulling most of the weight: your CA is heavily outgunned, and your BCs are at the mercy of the AI ship designer. 18" guns do seem to do a disproportionate amount of damage compared to smaller guns, especially in a stern chase which you will usually end up doing.

Cruisers Needed.

I picked More Funds. Nothing fancy in terms of tactics, just run your BB away while your CLs rush up and dump fish. The enemy BB is relatively easy to hit so you don't need to get ridiculously close; besides, you need to spread the hits out in order to flood the BB out. I'd have to re-read the damage model code to be sure, but it seems to be similar to Alpha 4 where a BB can absorb an infinite number of torpedoes without sinking if they all hit the same spot.

[Fishyfish]

The new missions in the past 2 or maybe even 3 patches have been really... boring and feel very samey. So many of them have been "build some kind of super warship" and I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I don't find doing that over and over to be all that interesting. The vast majority of them seem focused on "Build a super battleship for this nation" "build a super battleship for another nation" "build some super cruisers" and etc. I keep seeing a trend of modern, modern, modern, and it's getting really old. I've only beaten 14 missions, and those 14 were ones available in alpha 2 when I started playing as these newer missions are just so boring as to not keep me interested enough to finish them. Though the German raiding squadron looks like it could be an interesting mission, as does sink the raiders, I've still not been inspired enough to give them any real amount of time or effort. The problem I have with the new missions like the German Raiding Squadron is that the tools you've given us are in themselves boring and samey. Take the new German light cruiser for example, how much diversity in parts does it have? Two identical front towers, one smaller than the other. Three rear towers, two of which are identical but different sizes, and one funnel design only. That's nothing, that's boring. When your options are only "you can put these three key components, that all look the same, in a scant few predetermined slots and that's more than half your ship customization" doesn't really make for an inspiring or creative experience. 

And I keep finding this limitation to be the case with other new hulls and warships in other missions. The availability of parts for these new ships is nill, saying that a ship has three different front towers to chose from but making all three be the exact same tower just slightly different sizes with different stats isn't providing the player with three different towers. It's giving them one, with three different stats. Same goes for all the new hulls released in the past patch, all these new heavy cruiser hulls are in most cases identical to preexisting battleship, with identical but scaled down parts. This is boring.  

 

I'm really starting to wonder if I made a mistake in buying this game. 

[Nick Thomadis]

@FishyfishYou know what, your feedback is boring too, MOST of your comments so far have been boring, negative, offensive, ironic. Some time later, we must all realize as humans that if we do not have anything interesting to say, better not say anything, than spread negativity to forums, like a virus. Gentle manners, proper behaviors must, some day, become a habit for all of us, and not think that if we give a few euro to buy something, we are entitled to insult, press developers, press other people to do what we want.

[Fishyfish]

2 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

@FishyfishYou know what, your feedback is boring too, all your comments so far have been boring, negative, offensive. Some time later, we must all realize as humans that if we do not have anything interesting to say, better not say anything, than spread negativity to forums, like a virus. Gentle manners, proper behaviors must be, some day, become a habit for all of us, and not think that if we give a few euro to buy something, we are entitled to insult, press developers, press other people to do what we want.

You have to be able to take the negative with the positive. If you only thrive on positive feedback than you don't grow as a company, or in your skill or trade. I know, I'm a carpenter, I own my own small home improvement business. I dig how much it hurts when a customer nitpicks your hard work, when you bend over backwards and you can't please them. It sucks! I get it! And I admit in the past I've said some crass things full of vitriol, but this post in question is gentle. It's also just honest. Do you want me to lie to you? I'm not going to do that. And if you rather me gone than hear negative feedback that really says a lot about you. 

Furthermore, it's not a few euros. It was 50$ USD for early alpha access, a price tag more akin to a finished game from a big company then equal to anything I've spent on early alpha access. I took a huge gamble on what I thought might be the game I've always wanted, and furthermore it was being worked on by someone whose past works, the Darth Mods for Totalwar were mods I poured hundreds of hours into and highly regarded. It was your good name that sold me, I read everything available about this game at the time, I went over your dev blog in depth, this looked like it was going to be everything I ever wanted in a warship game and I was hopeful on your reputation alone.  

Now, months later, I feel duped and misled. This is my honest critique and I'm sorry if it offends you. The mechanics of the game are great, I have no nitpick about ballistics, floatability, torpedos or anything like that. I like how you've made it so players cant dupe the range of the warship in academy missions to make them more balanced, I like how you've striven to fix mechanical issues with every path. One patch flat out broke the game for me, enemy ships wouldn't sink and the next fixed it and made it mechanically playable. I'm grateful for these things. The nuts and bolts are there and as far as i can tell they're wonderfully done. It's everything else that falls flat for me. When your devblog says "we've released 7 new heavy cruiser hulls for every country" and I find that those hulls are just battleship hulls and parts that have been rescaled I feel lied to. When I read your devblog about projected features that are never discussed by the devs and bitterly argued over by members on the forums who aren't reading them I feel out of touch. Is what I've read still going to happen? Is what you posted still the plan you want to take? What am I suppose to do and think in this matter? On the one hand I can think "what sold me on this game isn't going to happen" and that leads me to be negative. Or I can think "these people are asking questions about things that the devs posted in their blog about planned game features" and I wonder are those plans now obsolete? You guys don't say anything in regards to that so all I can do is wonder. It's not a good combination. 

But if you want me to shut up and ship off I'll do that. I'm sorry I've offended you. But you as a developer don't seem to care that I feel I wasted my money on your product, that I don't play this anymore. Each new patch I log in, hopeful and excited, update to see whats new and cool and finding very little that grabs me and shakes me and makes me want to play, I hang it up and wait for the next one. And unfortunately that's going to remain the norm until I see something that says to me things will be different. Unless you'd like to continue to discuss this in DMs this will be my last post on the forums in regards to being unhappy with your game, and that I promise you. I will censor myself, and no longer plague you with negative feedback. 

 

[TAKTCOM]

I don’t know, I like new missions. The developers somehow add new missions  that different from those were before. Although it would seem to "sink them all" is quite a monotonous occupation. They are certainly unbalanced, and sometimes the only way to win is to press restart while praying "God of Autodesign". But whatever. I have a lot more questions for the game mechanics and the ship's constructor. I find missions in generally...acceptable.

[Cptbarney]

@Fishyfish Its not the negative feedback thats a problem (constructive feedback is always good), but how you present it. Its fine you want pre dread hulls (so do i actually posted this many times myself), but going on saying its boring or even assuming the devs only want modern hulls in game (i hope they don't i want too see all eras covered) doesn't help either.

I get it your passionate about this game and want to succeed and i hope it does so i no longer have to play bloody world of warships half the time, but we have to remember this stuff takes time, especially with such a small group as well.

Im hoping the focus will switch when the last modern hulls arrive in either both alpha 6 and 7 or just alpha 6 and then the focus switches to around 1880-1910. I also noticed about the additional hulls which i guess seems the case (dunno if you saw the japanese large cruiser hull it was a planned hull for a proposed BC hull which i think they almost got around to making).

Don't censor yourself, atm its best to flesh out one key feature or section of the game first then move on to the rest i'd rather this game be polished than rushed and a mess on release missing several things that should of been in the game.

I love the pre dreads @TAKTCOM Posted in that thread and some of those i would love to see in game, but we will have to wait for the devs to finish what they need doing and moving on.

I hope this finds well with you, sorry about being so harsh in the beginning, but its still early days, if this was 3 years after release and we didnt see any of those then yeah id be 100% behind (and i would since you know by then they should be in the game and lots of them).

Also i guess we need generic hulls for nations that couldn't build any of the relevant ships so when you play in the campaign you can.

I would also like too see more pre-dread missions as well (pity there werent more pre-dread engagements ingeneral, and wish the era lasted a little longer).

Also i hope your carpentary business is fine during this corona outbreak, make sure to keep yourself covered.

I think AI needs to be limited to make the missions less rng and more a given, plus we need more missions outside of kill all, so survive for a time limit, reach a destination, defend a certain ship, board a ship, bombard a target (please!) etc.

[Marshall99]

American vs spanish pre-dreadnought fleet mission would be cool to have. 

[Nick Thomadis]

@Fishyfish It is, I think, very obvious that we take into consideration all feedback, negative and positive. This is why we make feedback threads, and ask all players to give their impressions about the game, because we respect their opinion, we want to please them, and make a better game, for them. This is why we make constant updates/hotfixes based on this feedback.

Critique about the game is constantly fed in this forum. Usually people post about something negative, some kind of suggestion, something that is not yet in game, in polite, constructive way. When someone comes repeatedly with irony, negativity and intention to just throw vitriol (as you said) it is not only unpleasant, but not useful for us. We encourage sincere feedback of any kind, but constant negativity and nitpicking, usually not explained enough except defining something as boring or not boring, making further presumptions that are not true, is not useful, for me personally, and thus my sincere answer.

It is a fact that the game is still in development, arguably many enjoy it a lot at the moment, we hope we manage to please you more in our next updates. Let's keep the incoming critique but in a more gentle manner, shall we?

 

[Cptbarney]

4 minutes ago, Marshall99 said:

American vs spanish pre-dreadnought fleet mission would be cool to have. 

Hmm i wonder if we should start adding multi objective missions? So maybe you engage a fleet and you then move into bombard a target?

Or a you are attacking a convoy but got intel on a large(ish) fleet coming your way so you need to peg it a safe distance from the convoy at designated location?

Maybe even an ambush and you have to board or even could board a ship and take a prisoner away (only problem is that without a campaign structure we can't have prema negative impacts so each scenario is in its own world.).

[Marshall99]

Oh yes multy objective missions would be cool to have. Or you can achive one, two or three stars in a mission how well you complete in it. I am not sure how useful it is. Maybe if you do it well you will get bonuses like, you get more funds to build better ships, you will gain more honor so you will gain greater flagship bonus. I don't know. This game is just full of opportunities. You know couple of years ago, I just dreamed about such a game like this, and now here it is. So back to the missions. For example: min. criterium. What I mean (just an example) is that you have to destroy two enemy cruisers. If you do this, you will pass the mission. But there is another criterium (bonus). Destroy the enemy battleship too. If you do this, you not only pass the mission but you will be rewarded. As I mentioned earlyer, this can be more funds for your next ship design, or honor, respect from your crew, so they will work harder in the next missions. What do you guys think about these ideas?

[Cptbarney]

2 minutes ago, Marshall99 said:

Oh yes multy objective missions would be cool to have. Or you can achive one, two or three stars in a mission how well you complete in it. I am not sure how useful it is. Maybe if you do it well you will get bonuses like, you get more funds to build better ships, you will gain more honor so you will gain greater flagship bonus. I don't know. This game is just full of opportunities. You know couple of years ago, I just dreamed about such a game like this, and now here it is. So back to the missions. For example: min. criterium. What I mean (just an example) is that you have to destroy two enemy cruisers. If you do this, you will pass the mission. But there is another criterium (bonus). Destroy the enemy battleship too. If you do this, you not only pass the mission but you will be rewarded. As I mentioned earlyer, this can be more funds for your next ship design, or honor, respect from your crew, so they will work harder in the next missions. What do you guys think about these ideas?

I like this a lot, these missions could easily be expanded to include lots of things or teach certain aspects of the game (should be made obvious however). Other rewards could be cosmetic like a white fleet camo or built, designed proposed turret designs etc. Could even add previous ships designs into the next mission with said ship probably gaining some 'fame' points and maybe little messages of how peeps aorund the world feel about the ship itself (from your nation and others).

Could be more of a campaign thing but would still be nice too see and bloody cool as well. Oh and a name generator for ships so we can dump a bunch of names in and have the game randomly pick on for each design.

Devs must be overwhelmed by all the ideas we give them lol.

[Marshall99]

9 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Devs must be overwhelmed by all the ideas we give them lol.

This is our job Give them ideas and feedback. And I love doing this and I love this community a lot

White fleet camos are beautiful. Maybe they are one of my favourits. 

I am thinking about reshearch facilities. So basicaly, when you start the game, you have basic naval base, and you can upgrade it, so it can build ships faster. Better logistics, transportation of goods. And then you have the research building, where your scientists, engineers are working on bigger guns, turret tech, etc. So if you upgrade these buildings you will research things faster, building things faster. And also you can detect incoming attacks when you unlock radar. These are just ideas.

[Cptbarney]

5 minutes ago, Marshall99 said:

This is our job Give them ideas and feedback. And I love doing this and I love this community a lot

White fleet camos are beautiful. Maybe they are one of my favourits. 

I am thinking about reshearch facilities. So basicaly, when you start the game, you have basic naval base, and you can upgrade it, so it can build ships faster. Better logistics, transportation of goods. And then you have the research building, where your scientists, engineers are working on bigger guns, turret tech, etc. So if you upgrade these buildings you will research things faster, building things faster. And also you can detect incoming attacks when you unlock radar. These are just ideas.

Yeah, also adding to that coastal mines and also coastal defences too!

But yeah i love the flow of ideas this community regularly comes up with, just wish humans lived longer and stayed in our prime longer so we could enjoy things better. Oh well maybe when scientists eventually get to that point i guess lol.

[MBrandis]

Tried several times to complete the german raiding squadron mission, but as soon as the CA hits one heavy shell on my cruiser I might just as well restart. 

Mission seems really not fun, especially when you struggle to build a 28knot cruiser and the A just counters with a massive behemoth that hits you once, causes massive flooding and mission-kills you due to engine dmg. 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by MBrandis

[baatsman]

What would you change to make it more interesting for (you) other upcoming customers (players)

 

-- Naval Academy Mission 'Hurry Up'

1. Devs, just try this mission will you, at least for 3 mins a couple of times. You will get my point, as you never have a chance to protect those ships starting on the wrong side of the convoy, or building a ship that do not get spotted/focused before the haulers you are to protect. When working it is great and entertaining.

 

 

-- Naval Academy Mission 'German Pride'

It is nice with alternative historical tech development, but maybe limit it a tad more.

1. I suppose this relate to the historical 1941 Rheinübung, and the Denmark-strait encounter, but in an open ahistorical form , diversing the challenge the player faces to keep the mission entertaining.

But... why do the Royal Navy possess U.S.S.Rs late 1960s bismuth-lead reactors from alfa submarines? or how else can their 50000t armoured Battlecruisers go even faster, and still turning like go-carts?   I suspect nuclear powered bowthruster and directional waterjet propulsion, that is just not yet optional for the players to mount? ...

If a given size object (ship) is large enough, close enough and going steady, at least it should be possible to hit it, regardless if it's going 10-100kts, unless so close hydraulics cant turn the weapon fast enough, as long as it is physically possible. When the 'shooter' gun-estimates a varying  hit chance of between 2.6% to 6 % and you fire 1400 shells, your chance of landing more than 3 shells in several games are . . . none?!?

2. Love a challenge and a good laugh, and the mission is hilarious when facing a 47kts BC you are supposed to be able to catch, as the whole game now is in the hands of the AI or computer opponent. If it decides disengagement as its next move, we still do not have the emp shells to reliably cripple its engines temporarily...  or oh well it was impossible then, and just needs some fine tuning.

3. Wasting an hour playing missions that can not be done,  is to a degree entertaining for me, but I guess this should be and will be adjusted for the sanity of other players.

4. if the entertainment is better in a non historical way, its a better game. If the historical accuracy is pinpoint correct, it is a better simulator, and tool for the ones wondering about a 100s naval 'what if's . . . Uhmm,  am I researching? or getting entertainment? or even better can I get both for the price of one... ??

 

 

[ThePlanner]

My goodness, I cannot make any progress on the 'Prove your Might' mission. I can't successfully engage in a long-rang duel, I can't effectively out maneuver their fire and just slowly wear them down, and I haven't been able to build an oversize destroyer and race into knife fighting range to get in a flurry of torpedoes because even when they connect, the torps do too little damage to the enemy BB. Any thoughts?

I've successfully completed 33/39 missions, with the outstanding ones stemming from the most recent updates.

[archer884]

The American Super Battleship mission is so frustrating that I wanna drop kick my keyboard into a small volcano. Every time I am moderately successful, the enemy runs away, and it's impossible to kill a fleeing battleship because you will do an infinite amount of damage to parts of the ship that---because they are blasted to hell---are able to happily soak an infinite amount of damage. If I instead try a more aggressive tack, the end result is that I get blown up.

I'm an older player with a day job and more money than time. It's hard for me to replay the same mission over and over until I get just the right combination of enemy ship designs (which seems to be the solution to a lot of these missions, as far as I can tell). Actually, I wrote this mission off but decided to give it one more try after the last adjustment to heavy guns. Doesn't seem to have helped. Throw me a bone on this one, would you? It's downright infuriating.

On a more positive note, I'm excited to see where the game goes from here.

[ThePlanner]

20 hours ago, archer884 said:

The American Super Battleship mission is so frustrating that I wanna drop kick my keyboard into a small volcano. Every time I am moderately successful, the enemy runs away, and it's impossible to kill a fleeing battleship because you will do an infinite amount of damage to parts of the ship that---because they are blasted to hell---are able to happily soak an infinite amount of damage. If I instead try a more aggressive tack, the end result is that I get blown up.

I'm an older player with a day job and more money than time. It's hard for me to replay the same mission over and over until I get just the right combination of enemy ship designs (which seems to be the solution to a lot of these missions, as far as I can tell). Actually, I wrote this mission off but decided to give it one more try after the last adjustment to heavy guns. Doesn't seem to have helped. Throw me a bone on this one, would you? It's downright infuriating.

On a more positive note, I'm excited to see where the game goes from here.

After experiencing the same issue as you, I had some success with a build for the this mission that had powerful anti-DD secondaries, high maneuverability and very good anti-torp, just okay long range guns and armour. My tactic was to switch fire from BB to BB in an effort to damage their engines and slow them down, all while dodging torps and murdering DDs. I just wore down the BBs and ultimately won as I got dangerously low on ammo (I seem to recall <50 main gun rounds left).

[BriVic]

Hi all.  I'm new to the game and am having difficulty with the "Undefended Convoy Attack" battle.  I find the 15 minute time limit is not enough.  The battle used to have a 20 minute time limit, which would be much fairer.  I've tried the scenario many times with different configurations and have had absolutely no success.  I suggest putting the time limit back to 20 minutes unless someone here can give a hint as to how to win this battle.  Thanks.

[BriVic]

I just won it!  Had to fully arm my light cruisers.  Now on to some more.

[madham82]

9 hours ago, BriVic said:

Hi all.  I'm new to the game and am having difficulty with the "Undefended Convoy Attack" battle.  I find the 15 minute time limit is not enough.  The battle used to have a 20 minute time limit, which would be much fairer.  I've tried the scenario many times with different configurations and have had absolutely no success.  I suggest putting the time limit back to 20 minutes unless someone here can give a hint as to how to win this battle.  Thanks.

I just replayed this to make sure my design still worked. The combo I use is Lyddite 2 (be sure to select HE as ammo in battle), 12" mains, and lots of 8" secondaries. Most times if a single 12" hit, the transport would sink within a minute. The 8"s can easily do the same in a few salvos. All said I did finish with 2 minutes to spare. Just go in full speed. The real issue I have with this mission is the damn transport puny guns are firing on me well before I can see them. Something wrong with that picture. 

[arkhangelsk]

21 hours ago, BriVic said:

Hi all.  I'm new to the game and am having difficulty with the "Undefended Convoy Attack" battle.  I find the 15 minute time limit is not enough.  The battle used to have a 20 minute time limit, which would be much fairer.  I've tried the scenario many times with different configurations and have had absolutely no success.  I suggest putting the time limit back to 20 minutes unless someone here can give a hint as to how to win this battle.  Thanks.

Just build a battlecruiser with 4 triple 12" guns. Won on the first try (I won it b/f too, just not in Alpha 5) even if I had to spend the first few minutes finding the convoy. As for maneuvering, I just kept closing as the battlecruiser killed transport one, then paralleled them and they pretty much went down like ducks. There isn't much skill involved really and 20 minutes will just kill all educational value of the scenario, since its purpose is to encourage you to know what designs give you high DPS, and on the tactical front it might help if you make fire distribution choices - as in, knowing when you can leave your enemy to finish sinking on its own rather than pumping another set of shells into it.

[EVIL_IRISH]

I dont know what to do but I'm quite frustrated with these new missions like the german raiders or us super bb but the ai seems crazy accurate.  I the super battleship mission I have radar and cant seem to hit anything with it while the ai with obsolete tech keeps dropping rounds with a far greater degree of accuracy.  I dont know if this is a bug but it seems that the ai shouldn't be more accurate than a ship with radar.