one for the devs

[Mooncatt]

I sincerely hope this message reaches the guys/gals that needs to see it. I really really do. so, moderators, be a moderator and pass this on.

a lot of people MAY not agree with this post, and that's fine. everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I don't mind constructive crit, providing its constructive and not blatent abuse, so please think before you reply.

but for me, im abandoning this game, at least until I see a marked improvement and also when the the devs begin to listen to the community instead of adding more and more missions to the academy just to try and "keep us sweet". yes there have been some improvements. but nothing that REALLY needs fixing have been addressed. what I want to see (maybe some of the community might agree, maybe not) is the fixing of what can only be described as the "crap" compartment damage model. as some of you might know, my game (reasons unknown) got wiped, so I had to start again from alpha 7. everything is a million times harder than before. this isn't a bad thing, I like a challenge. what I DONT like is the impossibility of finishing a said mission. its almost like you have updated the game to suit the new missions and damn the previous academy missions and the affect it has on them.

Im sick to the back teeth of trying to chase down retreating ships and causing hundreds of points of damage with each salvo and causing zero structural damage/flooding until I run out of ammo. its almost pathetic.

if I was to be constructive (ive tried to be thus far) then surely if a compartment has been destroyed then any further shell hits to that compartment SHOULD pass through to the next one inline with the shell trajectory, no??

a fine example of everything ive said above is the "the US super battleship" mission. seriously, has anyone even tried it since the latest alpha update? its simply not possible to complete. I have a monster of a ship and I can sink one BB on my own accord. ive got lucky with a flash fire on the 2nd ship. and that's as far as I can get. its either a combination of the above or I don't even get that far before they run. even the yamato class ship that joins the fight later in the scenario runs from me! a ship which with all intents and purposes is SUPPOSED to cause me fear and lots of damage. but all it does is join the retreating ship and now im stuck with the same thing as before. this is just one example.

secondly, the secondary guns, the 8" for example are next to useless. they very rarely hit anything and they are a total waste of valuable tonnage and money that could be spent elsewhere. oh, and forget using anything less than an 8" gun because anything less allows DD`s to get within torp range and your guns are still just as useless, I could throw potatoes more accurately.

I also think the flash fires are a brilliant idea, but omg they are soooo OP. you've basically taken away at least 50% of the useable warheads because you cannot physically have good enough firepower while having enough protection to prevent flash fires from occurring. you need barbette protection, citadel protection and god forbid if you take super heavy shells with increased ammo along with cordite II. your guaranteed to get a flash fire. it just does not work at all!!! im stuck with using tube powder or the TNT varients. if I don't use this and I use cordite II ive got to use citadel IV at least, along with heavy barbette protection, this severely limits what guns you can use and armour values due to weight and cost. the flash fire chance is just way too high at the moment, at least for my liking.

again, as ive said, I know we are in alpha. I know the devs want feedback from us to improve the game. but they seem to be just doing what they feel fit and not listening to the community. this isn't the first time this has been mentioned and nothing has changed.

so farewell for now. good luck and have fun

[Shaftoe]

5 hours ago, Mooncatt said:

so farewell for now. good luck and have fun

Good bye.

[BobRoss0902]

6 hours ago, Mooncatt said:

I sincerely hope this message reaches the guys/gals that needs to see it. I really really do. so, moderators, be a moderator and pass this on.

a lot of people MAY not agree with this post, and that's fine. everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I don't mind constructive crit, providing its constructive and not blatent abuse, so please think before you reply.

but for me, im abandoning this game, at least until I see a marked improvement and also when the the devs begin to listen to the community instead of adding more and more missions to the academy just to try and "keep us sweet". yes there have been some improvements. but nothing that REALLY needs fixing have been addressed. what I want to see (maybe some of the community might agree, maybe not) is the fixing of what can only be described as the "crap" compartment damage model. as some of you might know, my game (reasons unknown) got wiped, so I had to start again from alpha 7. everything is a million times harder than before. this isn't a bad thing, I like a challenge. what I DONT like is the impossibility of finishing a said mission. its almost like you have updated the game to suit the new missions and damn the previous academy missions and the affect it has on them.

Im sick to the back teeth of trying to chase down retreating ships and causing hundreds of points of damage with each salvo and causing zero structural damage/flooding until I run out of ammo. its almost pathetic.

if I was to be constructive (ive tried to be thus far) then surely if a compartment has been destroyed then any further shell hits to that compartment SHOULD pass through to the next one inline with the shell trajectory, no??

a fine example of everything ive said above is the "the US super battleship" mission. seriously, has anyone even tried it since the latest alpha update? its simply not possible to complete. I have a monster of a ship and I can sink one BB on my own accord. ive got lucky with a flash fire on the 2nd ship. and that's as far as I can get. its either a combination of the above or I don't even get that far before they run. even the yamato class ship that joins the fight later in the scenario runs from me! a ship which with all intents and purposes is SUPPOSED to cause me fear and lots of damage. but all it does is join the retreating ship and now im stuck with the same thing as before. this is just one example.

secondly, the secondary guns, the 8" for example are next to useless. they very rarely hit anything and they are a total waste of valuable tonnage and money that could be spent elsewhere. oh, and forget using anything less than an 8" gun because anything less allows DD`s to get within torp range and your guns are still just as useless, I could throw potatoes more accurately.

I also think the flash fires are a brilliant idea, but omg they are soooo OP. you've basically taken away at least 50% of the useable warheads because you cannot physically have good enough firepower while having enough protection to prevent flash fires from occurring. you need barbette protection, citadel protection and god forbid if you take super heavy shells with increased ammo along with cordite II. your guaranteed to get a flash fire. it just does not work at all!!! im stuck with using tube powder or the TNT varients. if I don't use this and I use cordite II ive got to use citadel IV at least, along with heavy barbette protection, this severely limits what guns you can use and armour values due to weight and cost. the flash fire chance is just way too high at the moment, at least for my liking.

again, as ive said, I know we are in alpha. I know the devs want feedback from us to improve the game. but they seem to be just doing what they feel fit and not listening to the community. this isn't the first time this has been mentioned and nothing has changed.

so farewell for now. good luck and have fun

campaign is coming out within the next 2 weeks, so I'd hold up on that seeing as how I'd imagine the gameplay difference might fix a lot of issues from the academy missions.

[nimbalo500]

1 minute ago, BobRoss0902 said:

campaign is coming out within the next 2 weeks, so I'd hold up on that seeing as how I'd imagine the gameplay difference might fix a lot of issues from the academy missions.

are you sure? where did you get that from?

[BobRoss0902]

2 hours ago, nimbalo500 said:

are you sure? where did you get that from?

admin comment

they said they wouldn't do a steam release until campaign. So obviously that means campaign is coming very VERY soon.

Edited May 25, 2020 by BobRoss0902

[nimbalo500]

Yea do not hype yourself too much, they just confirmed an announcement coming soon not an update.

[RedParadize]

@BobRoss0902 Soon™.

Here is what admin said:

On 5/23/2020 at 10:09 AM, admin said:

We actually plan to start sending keys earlier before steam launch. Announcement coming next week or in a week.

This is obviously a non-commitment statement. We may have keys way before steam launch. Games need at least a "mostly positive" to sell well, so no need to say they will do what need to be done to have the luck on their side, even if it mean delays. At least, that's what I would do if I had some budget left.

[admin]

13 hours ago, Mooncatt said:

what I DONT like is the impossibility of finishing a said mission. 

Most important: this statement I am making does not come because of this post. We were planning to do it for a while.

Here is a statement
We are aware of the complexity of some missions and while hardcore players like me and many of our fans enjoy that challenge a lot of players don't like the almost impossible feeling and secretly hate it. We just could not support two modes before. 

We plan to implement 2 modes for Steam launch or right after the launch
Normal mode - hard but fair
Hard mode - current mode

 

We used the same method for Ultimate General Civil War which is very highly praised by players. It has a easier mode and while people like hard challenges sometimes they just want to enjoy the game and relax. Two mods will allow everyone to experience the game they enjoy. 

 

[Cptbarney]

I think peeps need to wait a bit, i mean this will take sometime to get stuff done and finalised. Nice too see a difficulty changer since i dont mind doing either too be honest.

Id be more concerned if this was the game around open beta, but it has seriously changed a lot since alpha 1. I think thats what people might be missing the comparison of when it first got released to the current iteration.

Hopefully we get the armour rework, adjustments at somepoint will make the game easier to balance and adjust at that point. Plus also bring us closer to realistic armour values too.

'w'

[DougToss]

A lot of player complaints are grounded in not understanding naval warfare and I'd hate to see the game veer away from realism to placate them. I don't mean that as an attack, their interest in the game is an amazing gateway into the subject and keeping them engaged while immersing them in the subject is ideal. Everybody is coming here from a different place, either as working or retired naval officers, professional or amateur historians, dilettantes, hobbyists and newbies. They all have different perspectives. 

Having said that, not that many ships were sunk by naval gunfire, secondaries hit neither often nor hard, and battles were not necessarily won by sinking the enemy! 

As an aside, because I post about secondary armament often, including detailed gunnery tables, the Royal Navy conducted studies that showed 6" secondary guns were completely impractical, an 8" secondary would be preposterous, and it is up to the game to explain why to players. 

Mission design would go a long way to educating players in the tutorial phase and also making game goals centre around realistic objectives. Forcing the enemy to end their mission and return to port is a significant victory, even if no ships are sunk. The opening phase of the Russo-Japanese war would fit this mold. The Japanese won by controlling the momentum and confining the Russian fleet to Port Arthur. Arguably, they did this with a single 12" hit that by chance hit the conning tower of the Russian flagship and killed the commander of the Russian fleet and his staff. 

There's a motto in the military: "Train the way you fight" or "sweat in training or bleed in battle". Military exercises derive a large part of their training value from realistic scenarios that mirror and prepare for expected combat situations. I think that academy missions with forces, objectives and win conditions that anticipate typical actions in the campaign (which in turn reflects historical combat actions) would be a much better way to bring players into the game than fantasy scenarios. They would have a more grounded understanding of the realities of tactics and gunnery, appreciate the value of different factors of ship design and how to best utilize them, and would become appreciably better at designing and fighting their ships as a consequence. 

Not only would this better train players in playing and understanding the game, it would enhance their understanding of naval warfare. 

  

7 hours ago, admin said:

Most important: this statement I am making does not come because of this post. We were planning to do it for a while.

Here is a statement
We are aware of the complexity of some missions and while hardcore players like me and many of our fans enjoy that challenge a lot of players don't like the almost impossible feeling and secretly hate it. We just could not support two modes before. 

We plan to implement 2 modes for Steam launch or right after the launch
Normal mode - hard but fair
Hard mode - current mode

 

We used the same method for Ultimate General Civil War which is very highly praised by players. It has a easier mode and while people like hard challenges sometimes they just want to enjoy the game and relax. Two mods will allow everyone to experience the game they enjoy. 

 

 

e: Just for clarification, I don't hate the academy missions because they are too "hardcore" or accurate. I hate them because I think on the contrary, they are fantastical. The missions and gameplay are not difficult because they adhere too closely to reality. They are difficult because the situations in terms of forces and mission are completely unrealistic. The undue challenge is because of the amount of ships getting thrown at the player, or player forces too small to accomplish the mission, and the expectation to sink enemy ships outright to win. 

This is completely independent of accurate modelling of mobility, protection and firepower which should be as historically accurate as possible in either mode! In War Thunder, the vehicle stats and physics modelling are the same in the analogues to "normal" and "hardcore" modes, but the amount of player aid and  UI changes. Maintaining a single codebase makes patches and updates much easier. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by DougToss

[BobRoss0902]

On 5/24/2020 at 11:10 PM, nimbalo500 said:

Yea do not hype yourself too much, they just confirmed an announcement coming soon not an update.

I'm quarentined so I've got nothing better to do than ride the hype train and have high hopes.

 

CHOO CHOO

[Aceituna]

On 5/25/2020 at 6:10 AM, nimbalo500 said:

Yea do not hype yourself too much, they just confirmed an announcement coming soon not an update.

I honestly don't see any problem in being hyped about the announcement. Since I think the waiting for campaing Will be much easier after the announcement because we Will know for how much longer we Will have to wait for it.

[nimbalo500]

While being excited is fine getting "campaign in two to three weeks" from the devs saying "an announcement coming in a week or two" is taking that excitement too far.

[DougToss]

Shooting at stationary and towed targets is something I think we need to see in the next update. Ideally we could set the parameters of the target size and range, bearing relative ship and speed for towed targets. This is a great thing to have in the academy, would be very helpful if it could be accessed while designing a ship. This is the simplest form of tutorials for new players and a good practice and test environment for everyone. Tests are more effective if the parameters are known, and testing out designs in quick battles is too variable to reliably test each component of a design, or new tactics and doctrine. 

Gunnery trials during work up training and shakedown cruises technically happen after a ship is commissioned, and maybe that could be an option in the campaign. The risk to each change in design is magnified in the campaign, and before making a major and expensive commitment, like a new caliber or new turret arrangement, it would only make sense to compare with what is already in service. Since you don't want to find out in battle, testing in known conditions is the way to go. 

If there ends up being a "hardcore" mode, firing tables could be inaccurate until tests are conducted. Firing a gun on an artillery range is not the same as having the gun in active service, and each new piece of equipment was tested relentlessly. Work up and shakedown was how crews were trained and ships were evaluated. It could run automatically, like in RTW, but the ability to drop in and conduct the tests could better give you an idea of how your ship will do in battle before you risk the fleet and possibly the nation on an untried design.

On a meta level, creating tables as a debug feature either sent back by the devs from the client or analyzed by players and reported on the forum or through a form can check to make sure the gunnery is working as intended. The best way to do that is to compare results to reality, and so setting the test conditions to those used in reality is a good way to go. 

tl;dr

Overall, I think people want to test things out, for fun or to improve designs, and for us participating in an Early-Access game, a test environment where we can give better feedback, and especially compare to reality can only be a good thing. 

 

[monbvol]

I know I have asked for ways for us players to control more variables and increased scripting in missions so we players can more readily see if things are behaving as intended/historically in the past and it seems pretty clear that we do need such things with the added bonus of many of the things I've asked for us players to have being good stepping stones to test certain portions of what would have to go into the campaign anyway.

That we're not getting them is just making certain issues more pronounced and quite simply put in it's current state I would not call this game anywhere near ready for a release as a result.

[Skoggatt]

I'm not really concerned about the difficulty of the academy missions, they aren't made to be fair after all. If you make a custom battle with equal numbers of ships and tech level it's pretty easy to design ships that perform well, even overwhelmingly so.

I also think it's too early to complain about the damage model. It's a placeholder at this point, though I sincerely hope that we get the reworked armor and damage model before campaign and not after. I think we need one more update focusing on an armor rework before we get to try out the campaign, and accordingly I doubt the campaign is releasing in three weeks though I could be wrong.