>>>Alpha-3 General Feedback v65<<<

[TAKTCOM]

1 hour ago, RAMJB said:

...probably you'd me more interested in that battery firing at something big that's engaging you, while your smaller guns deal with the destroyers.

Hey, I wrote this first!

11 hours ago, TAKTCOM said:

First, the secondary must be able to shoot at secondary targets. So yes, one ship must be able to shoot at several targets. And then the secondary guns will shoot at the destroyers, or merchant ships, and the main batteries will fire at the enemy’s capital ships. You don’t really need 12-18 inch guns to sink unarmored ships when Yamato is aiming at you.

 

[captinjoehenry]

23 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

I really hate to insist on it again, but where it is written that battleships were supposed to go around hunting destroyers?. In fact the destroyer in many ways came to existance as the "cheap" weapon to counter battleships (through the use of the torpedo). Battleships were never, ever, intended doctrinally or design wise to destroy enemy light forces. They were designed to slug it out against enemy big warships. Meanwhile light forces had specifically between their doctrinary roles, exactly that one: engage in torpedo attacks to destroy enemy capital ships. A battleship against a force of destroyers coming for it it's in the defensive, not in the offensive. What you want is weapons to fend off the attack. Sinking them would be nice but the goal of the secondary battery on a battleship is forcing those destroyers to worry about more things than just coming in for a torpedo drop. To hamper their attempted attack, and to force them to turn tails and run after accomplishing nothing.

To take out DDs, to hunt them down and sink them, you'll be using your cruisers and own destroyers. If you're throwing your battleship to do the job, you're not doing things right. Because you're putting the wrong weapon for the completely wrong job. Battleships are there to destroy enemy big warships, is their reason to exist. Not to massacre destroyers.

And as described, if the DD is the one coming for your BB, your priority isn't sinking the destroyer. Is to force it away to keep him from being a threat for your battleship. And you can accomplish that with a lot less than 12-36  secondary impacts, as destroyers simply do not take damage very well and, while not easy to sink, they are easy to mission kill. Again, of course is highly desirable to sink it too. But that's not what a battleship secondary battery is there for. If it achieves it, great. If not, that doesn't mean it didn't do it's job. When Bismarck was engaged by Vian's destroyers, she failed to sink any of them. But the secondary volume of fire was enough to force the attacking destroyers to turn tails after accomplishing nothing. Would you say the secondary battery of Bismarck had a bad performance because she didn't sink any destroyer?

Totally accurate to the real world.  Yet ENTIRELY wrong for how the game is.  In game there is exactly 0 deterrence factor or even forcing enemy DDs to maneuver.  In game the DDs can just come straight in take damage from the secondaries and then dump enough torpedos at you from such a range you can't dodge to sink even super BBs.  Meanwhile if you keep trying to open the distance in game and let your main guns work on the DDs you can kill them at 10km range where their torpedos are easy to dodge. 

So yes.  In the real world things are entirely different indeed.  But when it comes to gameplay you or the AI can order the DDs to go straight into sub 3km range of a BB doing no maneuvers,  taking damage but not fatal damage from secondaries and then kill the enemy BB at point blank range with mass torpedo spam losing one or less DDs to the secondaries.  Meanwhile IN GAME if you turn the main battery on the enemy DDs and work to open the range you can sink a good portion of them before they can close to effective engagement range.  That's just the way things work in game.  

Frankly though what you want both in game and in real life is for a screening force of cruisers or DDs to engage the enemies light forces but failing that, with how the game works, super BBs that are not at all agile can only rely on their main battery to kill DDs as their secondaries IN GAME cannot stop, fend off or disrupt a DD torpedo attack before they've come to point blank range and dumped an undodgeable volley of torpedoes at you.

[Hardlec]

On 12/9/2019 at 4:21 PM, RAMJB said:

 

On that end, and being nitpicky (but you know spanish players will make a huge mess out of it because people are that way)...the spanish flag has the correct red and gold colors but the incorrect coat of arms. The flag used is the constitutional one (post-1975), not the early XX century one (different coat of arms), nor the republican three color flag (1931-36/39), nor the nationalist/franquist one (1936-75, back to standard red and gold but with the eagle coat of arms).

Though to be safe I'd just use the pre 1931 iteration and be done with it. Given spanish politics and how illiterate people are here, about their own history, and the fact that most people can't get over things that happened 80 years ago well before even their fathers had been born, you'd get people with blisters in their eyes and throwing huge temper tantrums if they saw the republican flag or the franquist one (Depending on who's watching it) and making a COLOSSAL mess out of it.

At any rate ... yeah, the spanish flag. Colors are right, the coat of arms, it's not correct XD

The Soviet flag did not come out until after Lenin took over from the first communist party to take over.  I don't think it would be inappropriate, historically, to have no navy from 1916 to 1920 in the disputed country, Russia to when the USSR established itself.  

I do wish I could choose my nation.  Mayas Forever!

[RAMJB]

18 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

ENTIRELY wrong for how the game is.  In game there is exactly 0 deterrence factor or even forcing enemy DDs to maneuver.  In game the DDs can just come straight in take damage from the secondaries and then dump enough torpedos at you from such a range you can't dodge to sink even super BBs. 

No contention from this end. Because that's a valid point no doubt. The effect of being under heavy fire isn't in the game. Yet. That's the key word. "Yet" ;). How do I know it will be in there?. Well, because that factor has been modelled in every naval fighting game ever produced. From TF1942 up to Rule the Waves 2. Noticeable penalties to firing accuracy, and AI taking things a lot more cautiously if subjected to a hailstorm have been present in any immersive naval game covering the era of the big gun battleship since more than 30 years ago... 

It's a no brainer it will be here too.

Keep in mind that we have to adapt our perception of what's already in the game vs what is going to be in the game in the future. In the scope of incomplete things some parts of the game might be performing way better (or worse) than what they should but we have to remember how things will be like when the whole building is in place, not just the foundation. Arguing for drastic "balance" action (lord I hate that word XD) when things aren't even half complete is not only not going to solve any issues ... is bound to cause serious problems down the line. For that purpose I have to insist that from where I stand, secondary battery accuracy is right where it belongs already. What's missing are a lot other pieces that synergize with it. The solution, thus, is not "buffing" secondary accuracy. Is to make proposals to bring the things that aren't yet in here, and how to implement them smoothly into the framework that already exists :).

 

11 minutes ago, Hardlec said:

I do wish I could choose my nation.  Mayas Forever!

You will be able to choose your nation in the campaign. And probably someone can even make a Maya mod for you (hey in RTW modded nations have been a thing for years, don't see why not here ;)).

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB

[Skeksis]

37 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

Totally accurate to the real world.  Yet ENTIRELY wrong for how the game is.

Very good point, game reality.

AIs behaver is going to be completely difference to that of humans, cause they’re only programmed to today’s technologic level, which is no way at an human level (but maybe in the future though). Compromises or balancing is the only way to pug the intelligent gap.

Also the game is going to have far more engagements than was ever achieved in history and some of those results will be close encounters such as battleship vs destroyer, that's game reality. And within that reality battleships secondaries are going to be in contact with destroyers and what is expected is that the those destroyers shouldn’t have a chance, as to game reality doctrine. Together with concurring majority feedback, secondaries aren’t doing what is expected and that’s the feel right factor part of gaming.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

12 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

what is expected is that the those destroyers shouldn’t have a chance

Why?. Based on exactly what notion other than the completely off-base belief of a part of the player base which isn't familiar with naval warfare of the era to begin with?.

Rather more to the point: do you want a game about naval warfare of the Battleship era, or do you want singleplayer WOWS?. 

If it's the latter there's not much to discuss here.

If it's the former, then being by making things work as they did in the real naval warfare of the battleship era. Not as whatever confused, and mistaken, "perception" players who don't know much about the topic have. Part of the beauty of games like this (if well done) is that they teach you a lot of what went on in historical fights; which helps dispelling many myths and to put many things into perspective.

But if the only thing we want is a game where "things work as players 'expect' to" ,then what's the point of this game?. Something as believable and immersive as WOWS, just for one player only?. Back to square one: what do you want: a game about naval warfare of the Battleship era, or singleplayer WOWS?

To that point, I repeat the question. You say that "it's expected that destroyers shouldn't have a chance against battleships" (even while destroyers owe their very existance to their expected role to act as battleship killers, to begin with). Why?. Based on what?. And for what purpose?. To make one whole class of warships (the most numerous of the era) completely worthless by making one of their most important roles (torpedoing the enemy battleline) a suicidal one because some players who don't really know much about the topic, want and expect battleships to be sailing Death Stars?.

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB

[Hardlec]

I finally got a chance to try a battle I'v considered for a long time.  A Baltimore class 17,000 ton heavy cruiser against a 17,000 tone Dreadnaught.  Well, sorta.

The US 1940 CA had one thing I found most distracting.  There were only mounts available for 4 turrets of twin 5-inch guns.  The mounts were not positioned for anything close to historical placement.

In future upgrades, I'd really like to see little orange dots placed in all and ONLY the places where the selected item can go.  

This would also save player time if I have selected a turret configuration that is too big for a hull type.

Thanks.

[captinjoehenry]

3 minutes ago, Hardlec said:

I finally got a chance to try a battle I'v considered for a long time.  A Baltimore class 17,000 ton heavy cruiser against a 17,000 tone Dreadnaught.  Well, sorta.

The US 1940 CA had one thing I found most distracting.  There were only mounts available for 4 turrets of twin 5-inch guns.  The mounts were not positioned for anything close to historical placement.

In future upgrades, I'd really like to see little orange dots placed in all and ONLY the places where the selected item can go.  

This would also save player time if I have selected a turret configuration that is too big for a hull type.

Thanks.

I'm not entirely sure but when it comes to main battery centerline placement you can hold shift and place them anywhere along the ships centerline.  The barbettes though are fixed to only the snap locations

[Skeksis]

44 minutes ago, Hardlec said:

In future upgrades, I'd really like to see little orange dots placed in all and ONLY the places where the selected item can go.  

I’m the contrast to this, we need more placement nodes not less, designer tool is about the freedom of making up new designs and being 'creative',  only the hull shapes and components are historical. If more placement nodes players can still follow historical ships if they choose too, its a win-win for everybody.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

4 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

I’m the contrast to this, we need more placement nodes not less

100% agreed. Or rather, I'd like the option to get completely rid of the demand for placing stuff on those nodes. If there's space, let me put whatever I want wherever I want. Nodes are OK for general guidelines for someone to get started so he gets a general idea of where things should generally be placed at, and for the AI to use in their own designs.

But designing a ship is much less fun when you're limited in your options in such a way. There's no reason my front superstructure HAS to be placed in one of four places of a given hull, and I seriously dislike the game limiting me in putting it there.

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB

[akd]

There are definitely a number of ongoing issues with gun “accuracy” currently, but I don’t think they are specific to secondary batteries, nor would simply boosting the accuracy of smaller calibers across the board be a solution.

[Koogus]

Enjoying the new custom battle mode and other content that has been added from this update.

Few things I would like to see be added/changed in the future are, to give a lot more control of where you can place towers and barbettes like you can with guns, the ability to save designs in custom battle and the ability to design multiple ships in custom battle including enemy ships too.

Sorry if there is any poor spelling or grammar

[Donluca95]

11 hours ago, Koogus said:

Enjoying the new custom battle mode and other content that has been added from this update.

Few things I would like to see be added/changed in the future are, to give a lot more control of where you can place towers and barbettes like you can with guns, the ability to save designs in custom battle and the ability to design multiple ships in custom battle including enemy ships too.

Sorry if there is any poor spelling or grammar

You are absolutly right, we definetly need the option to save the ships design in custom battle, i'm tired to keep losing time because i have to create over and over the same ships designs. It is also absolutly necessary to have the option to design your enemy ships too, otherwise you can't really make any test in Custom Battle because the AI ships are always different!! I don't understand why you can't just create a design for every ship type in your fleet . I don't understand why they put the save design option in the naval accademy, because i think it's more important and necessary in the custom battles. Anyway i really love the game and the developer work! It's outstanding. Can't wait for the future updates. 

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Donluca95

[captinjoehenry]

8 hours ago, Donluca95 said:

You are absolutly right, we definetly need the option to save the ships design in custom battle, i'm tired to keep losing time because i have to create over and over the same ships designs. It is also absolutly necessary to have the option to design your enemy ships too, otherwise you can't really make any test in Custom Battle because the AI ships are always different!! I don't understand why you can't just create a design for every ship type in your fleet . I don't understand why they put the save design option in the naval accademy, because i think it's more important and necessary in the custom battles. Anyway i really love the game and the developer work! It's outstanding. Can't wait for the future updates. 

Sadly I understand why this is the case.  In naval academy the possible options for ship design are fairly fixed VS custom battles where you can change FAR more things just by changing the year count which would make implementing a save function for custom battles a fair bit more complicated even if it would be more useful.

[Skeksis]

11 hours ago, Donluca95 said:

we definetly need the option to save the ships design in custom battle

 

2 hours ago, captinjoehenry said:

 I understand why... save function for custom battles a fair bit more complicated...

"complicated", not really, if ship design saves are define by year and/or tech level then with the year/tech level of the mission set, those saves above that level would be disable and unloadable (if accessing a ship save library).

Re-designing ships over and over again can be addressed if Dev's have the will.

Suggestion proposed...

 

[RedParadize]

@Skeksis I would take a budget and ability to design all ship too. I am sure they will do it at some point.

[BB_Illusions]

A few things I saw after playing a bit today.

If the turrets from any ship rotate towards an enemy and one is opening fire because it was 'faster' or in a better position than the others, all others don't fire. For example, 5 turrets aiming at enemy and 1 is already opening fire, the other 4 'wait' until the 1st one reloaded, even with them in position.

 

Ammo seems to be calculated wrong too. I had 2x5 Torpedo turrets on my DD but only 6 Torpedos left. With it getting into position, it still fired 10 Torpedos at the enemy.

Overall I would like to have an option here to use Torpedo Turrets in solo mode, like if the DD, or Cruiser has 2 if them, the 1st goes for Ship A and the second for B. Especially if one salvo would be enough to sink the ship. Seems to be a waste of Torpedos, to attack a TR or CL with 10 Torpedos, when 5 or less are enough.

 

HE Shells did ~600 pen dmg (with fire and flooding) on Enemy BB's at a range of 23000, while AP only did like 80 with pen, if they did dmg at all.

[Skeksis]

1 hour ago, RedParadize said:

@Skeksis I would take a budget and ability to design all ship too. I am sure they will do it at some point.

I thought it would go without saying, selecting ships from a ship library would be govern by funds available too, I will make the suggestion clear aswell.

[Ignominius]

Alpha 3 was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed playing around with the new hulls, especially the modern CA and the BC, however I do have one minor concern: The fact that capital ships cannot mount any hydroacoustics or sonar makes it very difficult to protect against incoming torpedoes without an escort, and in a lot of missions it felt like the enemy light cruisers were just sitting at about 7-9km away from me and launching very consistent and very accurate hits that I had no way of dodging and that the best way to deal with light ships in that situation is to charge directly into the enemy fleet to sink them as quickly as possible. Also, in addition to the new torpedo warning icons, it would be nice to have some sort of audio queue for a new spotted target or torpedo, just in case we happen to be looking in another place when our ship or ships spot the torps.

[The Fundamentalist]

10 hours ago, BB_Illusions said:

Overall I would like to have an option here to use Torpedo Turrets in solo mode, like if the DD, or Cruiser has 2 if them, the 1st goes for Ship A and the second for B. Especially if one salvo would be enough to sink the ship. Seems to be a waste of Torpedos, to attack a TR or CL with 10 Torpedos, when 5 or less are enough.

I don't believe I've ever heard of a scenario where a destroyer fired off torpedoes at two different ships at the same time. This seems suspiciously like more of a "gamey" suggestion that would belong more with Ace Combat or something. Historically, torpedoes were extremely inaccurate and unreliable until the height of the second world war, which is why they would be launched in such aggressive numbers. 

I think that the Alpha 3 has been a pretty decent update. I feel like the Naval Academy would benefit from more tactical guidance, especially in the early missions. It would be a huge benefit to having some sort of fleet maneuvers tutorial to help explain how the components of the interface are supposed to be used, rather than my ad-hoc 'bumble through all the wrong ways of doing it'. For instance, I had no idea that ships automatically used secondary batteries at smaller targets if left un-prompted. An option to set displacement and battery limits in the custom battles would be nice, and I hope the naval treaties will make their appearance in game. 

The shortcomings of the update are basically parts of the game that are in development still, such as the crew. The damage system is still a bit erratic, and the AI needs some adjustment. It seems to lack aggressiveness when using smaller vessels, especially destroyers and torpedo boats. The new hulls in the Shipyard are very buggy. It seems to me that it would be ideal to abandon the placement icons for ship structural components, as they're most of the reason it's so buggy. For instance, on the Battlecruiser v. Battleship mission, the cage masts are almost unusable with the funnels unless you accept the lack of engine power, which is unnecessary given how much deck space there is. On the Iowa hull, using the smallest displacement settings create an unbalanced aft displacement that is unfixable. 

The flags still wave in awkward directions that are contradictory to the smoke direction. 

 

Otherwise, nice job !

[Riccardo Cagnasso]

Secondaries are still unable to hit anything. I get like 0.3% to hit at 1km, which is hilarious. It's like secondaries are manned by orks.
I read that they tried to fix this and other accuracy issues by "rebalancing" some modifiers. I reiterate. This won't work.

You will never have an interesting gunplay if you don't model the gunnery in a better way.

 

 

[Riccardo Cagnasso]

By the way, I did read the ongoing discussion about secondary batteries.

It's hilarious. There are people here that are actually arguing that secondary batteries should be completely and utterly useless because of HISTORICAL ACCURACY.

So, basically the theory here is that admirals and top brass of the entire world were complete idiots who spent unholy amounts of money to fit their ships with tens or hundreds of totally useless pieces of artillery. For decades.

I don't know what to say. It's... I don't want to be offensive.

[RAMJB]

15 hours ago, Ignominius said:

The fact that capital ships cannot mount any hydroacoustics or sonar

That stems from the fact that capital ships didn't mount any hydroacoustics or sonar.

Unless you count carriers as capital ships. If you do so, then IIRC a couple of japanese carriers had a sonar set (Taiho for sure, can't recall if any other). For Taiho at least it was mostly useless as CVs in a combat area are supposed to be sailing at high speed most of the time for air operations, washing out whatever sound the hydros could pick up.

To just highlight it all, Taiho got sunk by a submarine on her first battle. So it's not as if that kind of equipment would help a CV either. If we had CVs. That we do not. 

no battlecruiser or battleship ever had one of those things, so they don't get the option to load it either here. Sorry, no "Wargaming" treatment of the german line here ;).

Edited December 14, 2019 by RAMJB

[RAMJB]

1 hour ago, Riccardo Cagnasso said:

It's hilarious. There are people here that are actually arguing that secondary batteries should be completely and utterly useless because of HISTORICAL ACCURACY.

So, basically the theory here is that admirals and top brass of the entire world were complete idiots who spent unholy amounts of money to fit their ships with tens or hundreds of totally useless pieces of artillery. For decades.

Your post began with:

 I did read the ongoing discussion about secondary batteries.

That quote avobe means that no, you didn't.

And I'm terribly sorry, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of trying to correct you by repeating what's been already stated in the (very large) posts that you said you read, yet you didn't. Go back and read them carefully instead :).

Edited December 14, 2019 by RAMJB

[RedParadize]

7 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Your post began with:

 I did read the ongoing discussion about secondary batteries.

That quote avobe means that no, you didn't.

And I'm terribly sorry, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of trying to correct you by repeating what's been already stated in the (very large) posts that you said you read, yet you didn't. Go back and read them carefully instead :).

Coming form someone that quote people out of context and completely miss their point this is a bit rich.

If you look at the all comment made about small caliber/secondary here. The overall tone is that many find them too inaccurate to be effective. Each time it had been pointed out some people (you included) have argued against it. I did read your post you know, I know you see small caliber as hail of fire and dissuasion. But who say dissuasion say credible treat.

Now lets cut down the details and explanation. Whatever if it is accuracy or else. Do you think that in UA:D Small caliber/secondary is effective enough in UA:D?

Edited December 14, 2019 by RedParadize