Naval Academy Upcoming Balances

[Nick Thomadis]

Following the latest patch balances, we've noticed that several missions became too hard for most of you. We share a list of mission changes that are going to be available in the upcoming update.

• First Casemates: CSS Virginia: +15 minutes time, you now face only one monitor ship (instead of two).
• Defeat the Semi-Dreadnought: Increased initial distance, Increased funds for player, Decreased technology gap between AI and player ships, AI will never retreat, Win Conditions are less strict
• Torpedo Basics: Rebalances in available techs
• Destroyer Attack: Increased funds for player. Added one more hull option.
• Torpedo the Dreadnought: Increased funds for player. Added more hull options.
• Destroyers vs Torpedo Boats: Increased initial distance, Increased funds for player, Added one more hull option, player must protect at least 10% of his Destroyers.
• Meet the US Battleships: Increased funds for player.
• German Raiding Squadron: Increased funds for player, Decreased technology gap between AI and player ships.
• Hurry Up: Increased funds for player, Decreased technology gap between AI and player ships.
• Destroy a full Fleet:  Increased funds for player, AI will never retreat.
• Rise of the Heavy Cruiser: Increased funds for player.
• Dreadnought vs Modern Cruisers: Increased funds for player.
• Numbers don't matter: Increased funds for player.
• Sink "The Cruiser Killer: Increased funds for player.
• Heavy Duty: Increased funds for player.
• German Pride: Increased funds for player, Decreased technology gap between AI and player ships.
• Prove your Might: Decreased technology gap between AI and player ships, More enemy cruisers added but now it is not necessary to sink the German Battleship (You can alternatively sink the majority of enemy forces). A friendly battleship will arrive as reinforcement to help you out. AI will never retreat.
• The US Super Battleship: Increased funds for player, AI will never retreat.
• Design your own H-class: Increased funds for player, AI will never retreat.
• Wounded Beast: Increased funds for player.
• Modern vs Old Destroyers: Increased funds for player.
• Torpedo Banzai: Increased funds for player. Removed option of "More Funds" because base technology is vastly inadequate for the given hulls. Objectives became less strict: You need to sink 60% of BB and protect at least 10% of your own forces.
• Mission Impossible:  Increased funds for player.
• Battle of Destroyers:  Increased funds for player.
• Contest in the Black Sea: Increased funds for player.

Some other missions will receive an additional small amount of funds, just to help players design stronger ships against the AI.

The changes listed here will work in combination with other improvements, such as the more dynamic targeting, which will make more comfortable the control of small maneuverable ships, which are very vulnerable against gun fire.
Feel free to add your own recommendations.

[Cptbarney]

@Mooncatt There ya go! No more running away! ''w''/. Loving these changes, they should help alot not just in completeing them but also allowing the player to use a wider range of designs as well.

[Ruan]

Good to see some love for missions but the increased fund trend is a little worrisome with prospect to the campaign. Can cheaper ships still be viable in some way?

[fsp]

This is why I think the game will shine in campaign mode.

In RTW2 I actually love playing as smaller nations like AH, working with small, compact but hard-hitting short-ranged BBs, let's say 2 x 3 turret ships, big guns, heavy armor, low speed and comparatively cheap to produce.

I sincereley hope this game will allow for different approaches as well.

[madham82]

Glad to see some effort in balancing these and forcing the AI to not retreat where it makes sense!

Nick one thing I would ask be looked into, remove the percentages from victory conditions. In these missions you know how many ships the AI will have, just state the number needing to be sunk. I had noticed it in earlier builds the victory would not be triggered correctly with odd numbers of ships. Might not be an issue anymore, but think this change will make it easier for players to know how exactly to sink. 

Edited May 29, 2020 by madham82

[kadm]

Git good

On a serious note: Try maybe to change the academy from pass/fail to score based system. 

There is a difference between sinking the target ship with a lucky torpedo volley fired during a suicide run and designing a well balanced ships that are able to defeat the enemy without getting badly mauled.

Also maybe better balance between techs. Sometimes it's a no-brainer choice.   

Idk really.

[Cptbarney]

2 minutes ago, kadm said:

Git good

On a serious note: Try maybe to change the academy from pass/fail to score based system. 

There is a difference between sinking the target ship with a lucky torpedo volley fired during a suicide run and designing a well balanced ships that are able to defeat the enemy without getting badly mauled.

Also maybe better balance between techs. Sometimes it's a no-brainer choice.   

Idk really.

Im the most interested in the campaign however which will basically make or break the game me thinks.

[Aceituna]

53 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Im the most interested in the campaign however which will basically make or break the game me thinks.

Honestly, campaing is the only thing i expected from alpha 7 that's why it kind of makes me nervous how much new stuff is  promised for alpha 7 besides campaing.

[SiWi]

2 hours ago, Aceituna said:

Honestly, campaing is the only thing i expected from alpha 7 that's why it kind of makes me nervous how much new stuff is  promised for alpha 7 besides campaing.

I do wonder if they have to delay the campaign till after first half of 2020 (aka after june) which would be a pumper.

Thou depending on the state of the campaign perhaps understandable.

 I mean you and I will be happy even if only the most basic campaign works somewhat.

But given that they want to put it on steam and perhaps don't want to ruin first impressions on steam, they may be cautious about putting a campaign on that is too buggy or wacky.

[Bilderberger]

10 hours ago, SiWi said:

I do wonder if they have to delay the campaign till after first half of 2020 (aka after june) which would be a pumper.

Thou depending on the state of the campaign perhaps understandable.

 I mean you and I will be happy even if only the most basic campaign works somewhat.

But given that they want to put it on steam and perhaps don't want to ruin first impressions on steam, they may be cautious about putting a campaign on that is too buggy or wacky.

As far as I know Steam offers the possibility to voluntarily participate in the beta branch of a game. Therefore, if you wish to play a more unstable version of the campaign one could simply utilize that feature. If you wish not to, then you do not need to. I think this would be a reasonable compromise.

 

Most Naval Academy missions are fun, no doubt about that, but I must confess, the campaign is/should be more important. To me, personally, many missions feel rather "forced" and "constructed", which is alright, it's an academy after all, but the campaign, I think, is where the game is going to shine.

[SiWi]

45 minutes ago, Bilderberger said:

As far as I know Steam offers the possibility to voluntarily participate in the beta branch of a game. Therefore, if you wish to play a more unstable version of the campaign one could simply utilize that feature. If you wish not to, then you do not need to. I think this would be a reasonable compromise.

 

Most Naval Academy missions are fun, no doubt about that, but I must confess, the campaign is/should be more important. To me, personally, many missions feel rather "forced" and "constructed", which is alright, it's an academy after all, but the campaign, I think, is where the game is going to shine.

Oh don't get me wrong:

I want the campaign. It gives context and purpose to the battles which random missions and custom battles lack (which is why I love TW so much).

because lets be honest here, both the academy and the custom battles don't teach good ship design. In academey you need to narrowly design a ship to do that role in that battle that it would be hardly universell. In custom you can simply build the biggest and most expensive ship, with short range, and not lose anything. In a campaign things like building time, cost and numbers of ships will change of that.

 

But to getz back to the argument here:

the problem is the following: imaging someone who sees the game on steam, never heard of it but thinks it looks fun. He/she buys it. And then goes to the campaign and it is a complete mess.  I think there is a chance that that person would write a negative review, perhaps refund the game and so on. All of this could be bad for the Devs, given they make a living out of this.

Hence the argument that they want the campaign as stable as possible, to not scare away people of the steam release.

[Bilderberger]

1 minute ago, SiWi said:

Oh don't get me wrong:

I want the campaign. It gives context and purpose to the battles which random missions and custom battles lack (which is why I love TW so much).

because lets be honest here, both the academy and the custom battles don't teach good ship design. In academey you need to narrowly design a ship to do that role in that battle that it would be hardly universell. In custom you can simply build the biggest and most expensive ship, with short range, and not lose anything. In a campaign things like building time, cost and numbers of ships will change of that.

 

But to getz back to the argument here:

the problem is the following: imaging someone who sees the game on steam, never heard of it but thinks it looks fun. He/she buys it. And then goes to the campaign and it is a complete mess.  I think there is a chance that that person would write a negative review, perhaps refund the game and so on. All of this could be bad for the Devs, given they make a living out of this.

Hence the argument that they want the campaign as stable as possible, to not scare away people of the steam release.

Naturally. I agree with many of your points and understand your reasoning.

 

Hence the beta suggestion. It is deactivated by default and must be activated manually. It also warns you before possible broken content, bugs, glitches and the like. A recent example would be M&B Bannerlord, an early access game, with a stable branch and an experimental beta branch. I think this might be quite fitting for this scenario.

[Tousansons]

Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player.

This and some mission where the enemy will finaly stop retreating is a really nice change. For some missions (like heavy duty and number don't matters) it will also mean you can fit more guns or add more steel boards with no armor or speed to the party \o/

I know Academy Mission are designed as puzzles, but in a game where luck is present, you can't expect a tight budget and scrict objectives to work well when a single 152mm hitting the propulsion of a DD means game over. Allowing more room for the player to design more silly design could be a very nice way to make academy mission unique and really fun, because let's be honest, most of the time in these mission you create a monstrosity that will never fit in a campaign.

[admiralsnackbar]

I hope in the long term that Naval Academy missions are maybe less restrictive in their win conditions such that AI isn't necessarily forced to [illogically?] fight to the death. 'Mission kill'ing ships or damaging them so badly that the crew is forced to scuttle the ship for example. Losing half your fleet to destroy the entire enemies fleet might in some instances be worse than keeping your ships but having a situation where the enemy abandons the combat zone. Maybe do what ultimate general does and have multiple degrees of win condition. 

There are some missions in this game where, especially for high tier battleships, they can only be sunk if the ship gets detonated, torpedoed, or is broadside long enough to get flooded. Once the ship starts retreating it's basically a stern chase where no amount of 18 inch gun fire shooting into the deck and stern will sink that ship. I don't know if that's realistic, but maybe handing the 

 

[fsp]

I really, really want the campaign soon. Even a broken one.

But putting it on Steam with the campaign would be a really bad idea. The state the online community is in nowadays means that even having it as beta option would be no good. People would write toxic reviews.

The campaign first has to be rolled out here before it makes its way to Steam.

[BobRoss0902]

2 hours ago, fsp said:

I really, really want the campaign soon. Even a broken one.

But putting it on Steam with the campaign would be a really bad idea. The state the online community is in nowadays means that even having it as beta option would be no good. People would write toxic reviews.

The campaign first has to be rolled out here before it makes its way to Steam.

It will most likely come out this month. It is practically gurenteed to be in the next update with the devs saying things about having enough hulls for campaign and how after destroyer update all the work would be done on campaign.

So very very soon.

[Cptbarney]

Yeah, i would probs hold out no the steam release and roll the campaign out here first, since if you release it in a really buggy or broken state onto steam, the screechies will flood the reviews and start weeing all over their keyboards, because reading and using brain plus patience is hard apprently in the 21st centuary still.

Oh well. I think most if not all academy missions could do with multiple win conditions (including kill all, kill 75% if enemy retreats at this point with x amount of ships left you win etc). Would make the battles more dynamic then and a bit closer to realism too.

[Latur Husky]

A clear distinction between main and secondary win condition would be great.

I noticed that for all defend convoy missions, keeping the convoy within win conditions is sufficient to win alone and it should be a primary task, but sinking enemy should be secondary task in that case.

[Cptbarney]

3 hours ago, Latur Husky said:

A clear distinction between main and secondary win condition would be great.

I noticed that for all defend convoy missions, keeping the convoy within win conditions is sufficient to win alone and it should be a primary task, but sinking enemy should be secondary task in that case.

For animation effects (cus am designer at heart), they could have typing effect similar to the older typewriters, but subtle with primary objectives and then secondary objectives and maybe tetritary objectives appearing, using the standard font atm. Dunno if they will have the ability to change overall themes in the game.

[roachbeef]

On 5/31/2020 at 3:51 AM, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, i would probs hold out no the steam release and roll the campaign out here first, since if you release it in a really buggy or broken state onto steam, the screechies will flood the reviews and start weeing all over their keyboards, because reading and using brain plus patience is hard apprently in the 21st centuary still.

Oh well. I think most if not all academy missions could do with multiple win conditions (including kill all, kill 75% if enemy retreats at this point with x amount of ships left you win etc). Would make the battles more dynamic then and a bit closer to realism too.

I would like to give the example of Ready or Not. They pushed out a multiplayer beta for the first time (us alpha testers were under NDA) without ever sending it to the alpha testers for testing. The result was a buggy mess that seriously harmed its first gameplay reveal to the general public. What's worse is that there was a perfectly functional singleplayer that they could have shown instead.

The devs here thankfully didn't put the game under NDA, but the same principle stands: every time you reveal the game to the public, it is best to segregate the less tested portions from the general public because there will be a ton of entitled babies calling it a shit game for releasing a buggy campaign. Just have a separate alpha build for testers in Steam, since I dont' want to repeat the UA:AoS experience of having to have 2 separate installations of the game.

[Danvanthevacuumman]

haha ready or not pvp build was just bullshit lol. But i do hope they learn from that.

[SiWi]

I would suggest a "don't shoot at this target" button, reason for is this:

sometimes you see enemy ships which are already doomed and don't need any more of your firepower and hence I would like to order my ships to not attack it anymore. 

[DougToss]

The game is not ready for steam because we are told over and over again that gunnery, protection and mobility - the core systems - are placeholders. If the armour and gunnery is completely out of whack, and I believe that it is,  get it right and build from there. 

Same with campaign. The game right now is teaching players to build ships that would not be practical or affordable in any campaign grounded in reality. There is a reason that every navy in the world didn't exclusively build massive ships with 20" guns.

[Bilderberger]

5 hours ago, DougToss said:

The game is not ready for steam because we are told over and over again that gunnery, protection and mobility - the core systems - are placeholders. If the armour and gunnery is completely out of whack, and I believe that it is,  get it right and build from there. 

Same with campaign. The game right now is teaching players to build ships that would not be practical or affordable in any campaign grounded in reality. There is a reason that every navy in the world didn't exclusively build massive ships with 20" guns.

Frankly, I think this is the reason as to why we "need" the campaign. It gives context and limitations, something the Naval Academy Missions, or Custom Battle for that matter, do not. I think having that context, the environment, one could say, attached to the process of ship design, that's when things start to get interesting.

 

It does not need to be a full Steam release but a first candidate should very well be accessible to us. Or at least a little bit of information on how things stand, just so we know what we're up for (aside from the already existing information).

[roachbeef]

On 6/4/2020 at 2:21 AM, Bilderberger said:

It gives context and limitations

This exactly. Currently, nobody gives a shit about ship range, reliability, crew requirements, crew comfort, ship seaworthiness in bad weather, floatplane capacity, or command space.

Not having the campaign gives players bad habits, and then they clutter the forum with unrealistic complaints.