>>>Alpha-12 Feedback (v86 3/6/2021)<<<

[CapnAvont1015]

I reckon at some point in the future shell fuse will become a thing.

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by CapnAvont1015

[Cptbarney]

*rocks backwards and forwards waiting for news on the next fat update*

[Kebla]

when do you think it will come out? Before September or after?

 

[CapnAvont1015]

I'm hoping that it will come out some time during August. But that is just wishful thinking.

[Aceituna]

3 hours ago, Kebla said:

when do you think it will come out? Before September or after?

 

It will surely come out ,,as soon as possible''.

[Cptbarney]

37 minutes ago, Aceituna said:

It will surely come out ,,as soon as possible''.

Ye, although i would love for it too appear in august probs arrive around mid sep- early oct.

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[SonicB]

16 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

As usual, none of this is meant as a killjoy. I happen to think you need to build a campaign on the core elements of ship design and battle being largely nailed down. If they are regarded as such, well, I'll say no more.

Good analysis as always. My understanding is that the 'core patch' currently being worked on alongside campaign is supposed to be the one that basically locks in the game mechanics. As such, next patch really is the make-or-break one, and I suspect the delay reflects that.

[Steeltrap]

20 hours ago, DougToss said:

Your appraisal is more-or-less the same as mine, though it is nice to see that you took a peek at development around the same time I did. 

I'd love to hear more about SAP if you're up to it. Was it supposed to function like simple HE Delay fused rounds? Base fused? 

I did some reading about it some time back when I got interested in it for some reason, probably when I was trying to find what, if any, justification there was for any of the different performance characteristics between nations in WoWS. 

[As an aside, it ought to surprise nobody to hear there isn't in 99% of cases and in fact in some it's absolutely nonsense, such as the HE performance of IJN WW2 ships. While they did use a particularly flammable bursting charge rather famously at Tsushima, ironically that caused many navies to learn incorrect lessons that went on to affect developments and doctrines for a while. By WW2, however, that was largely irrelevant. Indeed the IJN 8" HE rounds were on the smaller side of bursting charges out of all the combatants from memory, just more evidence (as though any were needed) that it would be great for people to learn that WoWS is an arcade yippee-shoot game and in no way to be seen as a relevant source on anything other than the models, as I said.]

I read a very good assessment of Tsushima years back (and for the life of me I can't remember what it's called) that pointed out despite the fires, some of which were major and thus had serious effects on crew and functions above decks, it WASN'T 'fire-spam' that sank the Imperial Russian Fleet. No, it was good old fashioned holes at/below the waterline. Amazing to think the rules of buouyancy didn't suddenly change because 'muh fires', lol.

Anyway, it's interesting that Jellicoe (a much maligned figure IMO) clearly appreciated all that as he stated very clearly in directions to the fleet not long before Jutland as it happened, and was largely proven correct (he didn't know the AP was frequently useless) that his ships were to shift to 'maximum' rates of fire INSIDE ~10,000yds as that's where he expected the AP to deal the killing blows; HE he expected largely to do surface damage, fires, and likely degrade combat effectiveness but NOT be any danger to the enemy ships' survivability.

That's certainly something people don't learn from WoWS, and something I'd suggest the devs of THIS game OUGHT to learn/remember, at least if they're going to continue to make any claims about the dreaded term 'realism', lol.

AP reaching something sensitive inside with catastrophic results, or causing multiple breaches at/below the waterline, is what sinks ships that in any way might be classified as 'armoured', NOT showering them with HE. Ships sink because of loss of buouyancy, period. Fires can render a ship uninhabitable and then burn it to the waterline and thus founder, but that's an exceedingly rare situation post-WW1 (I've posted elsewhere more than once the observations from the Captain of USS South Dakota following its famous 'punching bag' performance at Guadalcanal in which he stated clearly something along the lines of "fires were small and quickly/easily extinguished"). No, I'm not saying ships never had serious fires, or that they didn't worry about fires, or anything else people are apt to make up when I post these sorts of things (they certainly do on YT comments, LOL), I mean only what I wrote and exactly that (for anyone who cares, which is likely nobody, my stuff ought to be easy enough to read if you remember the simple rule that I am very literal and specific in my use of language).

Getting back to SAP, as a classification is somewhat misleading anyway. For a great read on the issues of "what sort of shell is this?" although specifically written regarding the issue of 'de-capping', I recommend the following from the remarkable Nathan Okun (a person who gets their own section in navweaps, so valuable and extensive is his contribution on all things to do with shells and specifically their performances against different types and arrangements of armour; he even provides a program that's downloadable and does armour penetration calculations I believe, something you'd have hoped the devs looked at at the very least):

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-085.php

 

4 hours ago, SonicB said:

Good analysis as always. My understanding is that the 'core patch' currently being worked on alongside campaign is supposed to be the one that basically locks in the game mechanics. As such, next patch really is the make-or-break one, and I suspect the delay reflects that.

Thanks.

I see no possibility of them addressing all the core mechanic issues in a single update, and that's assuming they're even on the same page as many of us as to what the issues are. Given Nick once asked me "what's the problem with bulkheads?" when I'd been posting about that specific thing for almost a year at the time, for example, I'm not exactly confident they are.

Happy for them to prove me incorrect, of course.

Cheers

Edited August 4, 2021 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

On 7/25/2021 at 6:57 AM, Tousansons said:

Clunky UI, decent/good visuals, lackluster audio and repetitive campaign. Gameplay is fine, but it's still a naval game that fail to understand that staring at ships firing for 20 minutes with little interactions is not okay.

If people leave their ships firing for 20 minutes with little interactions they're doing it incorrectly IMO. There are plenty of things to consider in any moment of surface combat in the game.

That is one of the few aspects of the game I do NOT think they got incorrect, incidentally, at least in general terms. Specifics? Different matter, especially when it comes to submarines/ASW (for those who don't know, you can conduct sub attacks playing the sub, or have to evade a sub's attack and then carry out ASW as surface ships).

Sure, people might not like it as a casual game, but for anyone who wants a little more realism it's a refreshing change. If you want 'realism', naval games cannot be 10 minute battles. People who want that can simply use the (egregiously awful and absurd) 'manual aim' option. You can sink an enemy fleet in 10-15 minutes, easy, using that, and there's plenty to do (constantly changing the aim point). In fact if it takes longer you're probably screwing that up, lol. But it bears no resemblance to what the game is supposed to be 'somewhat simulating'.

I happen to think its current state, despite obvious flaws, presents many things SO much better than this game. Which explains why I've played it quite a bit, and haven't touched this game for near 6 months.

What's all this prove? Nothing, other than people have different tastes, which is hardly news.

Cheers

[Tousansons]

5 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

There are plenty of things to consider in any moment of surface combat in the game.

Ah yes, the thrill of watching AA guns fire at spotter planes.

The heart pounding decisions of watching DD's run towards the location of submarine fired torpedoes with sonar on.

The critical thinking needed when your battle line pound the enemy one with 90+ solution for 5 minutes.

"plenty" to consider, in these moments I agree

Like I said, gameplay is fine but it drags on for way too long, especially with the subpar AI that never surprise you and the fact that you fairly quickly run into the same battles during the campaign. I think Wots is one of the better naval game out there, but I'm not blind to it's obvious flaws and I don't have grognard goggles that shrug it of as just "casual" complaints.

5 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

If you want 'realism', naval games cannot be 10 minute battles.

*X speed, pause button and why not forcing pause on a critical event, decent AI with player preparation and small adjustement during the battle and voila. I'm pretty sure you can represent hours long slog in a few minutes without losing that much.

 

[Afghanicus]

Hey Team, it's been over two weeks since last contact, maybe a little "hey we're still alive" or other update would be appreciated.

[DougToss]

@Steeltrap thank you, that was great. I agree that there's nothing to be gained by looking at "World of X" titles. Sometimes their art direction and research is good, other times not, and anything to do with simulation is a write-off. War Thunder is just a bit better, which funnily enough is a problem for them as they have more-accurately simulated equipment in wholly artificial game modes which causes the whole thing to break down. Their solution is not to tinker with equipment (too much) but to have a rating system, with the result that chronology is all over the place. A real missed opportunity IMO. 

WRT to what you were saying about incendiary effect, I would add that it is the result of incomplete combustion. As explosives and fuses got better, combustion was both quicker and more complete so that the weapon's stored chemical energy was turned into blast, rather than dispersing unburned or still-burning compounds which would start fires.

If you think of Fuel Air Explosives, scattering fuel and then detonating it can be divided into processes. Now, with FAE that is intentional, and the combustion of the now-scattered fuel is complete and rapid. If you picture older chemical fillers, like black power, which can burn very slowly indeed, you can see how scattering slow burning fuel all over the place through poor fusing or bursting may start fires - but also how turning the chemical energy into thermal energy is much less effective than turning it into explosive energy. 

Japanese shells would have started fires because they weren't very good (at being explosive shells). It's strange how people sometimes miss that. 

Is it possible that the account you remember reading came from the relevant passages of Warrior to Dreadnought, Friedman's Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era or Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations? Each covers that aspect of Tsushima. 

Edited August 4, 2021 by DougToss

[Steeltrap]

18 hours ago, Tousansons said:

Like I said, gameplay is fine but it drags on for way too long, especially with the subpar AI that never surprise you and the fact that you fairly quickly run into the same battles during the campaign. I think Wots is one of the better naval game out there, but I'm not blind to it's obvious flaws and I don't have grognard goggles that shrug it of as just "casual" complaints.

Agree entirely.

I, too, don't shrug those things off. I've written many fairly extensive threads on them and even had some friendly back and forth with Devs on some of it. Still lots to do. Some of it drives me nuts, lol.

I said well before the game was available that my greatest concern would be it having "Atlantic Fleet" levels of AI, which is to say zero. It's not much better, frankly, and 'competent AI' is clearly the hardest thing to do in games given how many of them are shite (although it doesn't stop people buying them, especially Total War titles whose AI has been really atrocious in many ways for a long time).

It's interesting that WotS chose to implement what I'd say is pretty clearly a simplified form of the damage control system used in Great Naval Battles: North Atlantic '39-43. It's not a bad compromise, although even there the AI definitely could use some tweaking. I still think GNBNA has the best of those I've ever seen, and that was released in 1990 or something crazy like that, lol. It, too, however, failed because of its AI. They had a better excuse, given it was 1990 and very much less capable hardware available (which ironically I think tended to put the focus on proper game DESIGN, as they couldn't hide poor/lazy/dumb mechanics behind 'ooh, aah' graphics and sound effects).

To be fair about 'repetition', they're basing it on a specific campaign. The forces available to both were not infinite, and indeed the circumstances under which the IJN were operating (having to get in and out of Henderson Field's air cover during hours where they couldn't fly) limited their choice of forces even more. By definition fights will be repeats, just as they broadly were historically. Despite that, they certainly had some surprising variations in results, often tied to how poorly the USN commander on the scene understood radar. But that's the thing with a historical based campaign system, it CAN'T be a vast RNG of ships from the world's navies tossed together if it wants to have that historical campaign label attached. That they had to add a "sink 100+ of the enemy ships and they'll quit" as a potential victory condition speaks volumes about the AI and balance, however.

Cheers

p.s. on reflection I can see my initial comment might have presented as "stupid casual gamers blah blah", which is not at all what I meant it to be. Thanks for calling me on it.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

18 hours ago, Tousansons said:

X speed, pause button and why not forcing pause on a critical event, decent AI with player preparation and small adjustement during the battle and voila. I'm pretty sure you can represent hours long slog in a few minutes without losing that much

Time compression for me means shortening the time it takes for us to see something happen but that's subtly if substantially different from mechanics themselves that see you sinking several capital ships in 10 minutes real time.

One is a matter of convenience, the other is generally an abandonment of any pretence to realism unless circumstances were decidedly peculiar (even the brutal, deadly night battles of Guadalcanal took much longer if one considers manoeuvre and then how long it often took for ships to succumb to damage).

But, yes, all the things you've suggested are absolutely good quality of life options that could and likely ought to be included. My issue is when mechanics are altered so as to compress thing to the point of being silly, something I believe THIS game is doing in its current iteration in some respects.

Cheers

[Donluca95]

Hey developers, you could at least let us know where you are up to. Any news ? When there will be the next Update ? Are you all died for summer heat ?
 

[Steeltrap]

5 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

I, too, don't shrug those things off. I've written many fairly extensive threads on them and even had some friendly back and forth with Devs on some of it. Still lots to do. Some of it drives me nuts, lol.

On the off chance anyone's interested in just one illustration of the sort of stuff I was tossing out for discussion re WotS, here's a link to one such post:

Post in War on the Sea suggestions forum in Steam

I don't think much has been done to address these, although that's in no small part due to the fact the game was barely deserving of the term 'beta test ready' when sold as a complete product (something I wish for which there were some SERIOUS implications for devs that do it). They had (and have) SO many things needing work that something that gives the appearance of working apparently is good enough in their eyes, at least for now.

As an aside, people might want to think about how much of this might be relevant to including viable submarines and ASW when they ask for the ability to design and use submarines in THIS game. The amount of work involved is vast, frankly, assuming you want it to have any value as a playing experience. (if anyone takes that as a "so stop suggesting submarines", lol, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I AM saying is possibly chucking subs in isn't exactly a 5 day task, and there's an opportunity cost of all that dev effort that could be put into elements more central to this game's selling proposition)

Cheers

Edited August 5, 2021 by Steeltrap

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Kebla]

also  Stealth made a video about this, please communicate with the community, even just with one blog a week as other people have said in which you say what you have done or the problems encountered; I think everyone would like it

[ThatZenoGuy]

On 7/19/2021 at 5:00 AM, DougToss said:

we now have open Third Reich apologists on the boards. Disgusting. 

Right, but the thousands upon thousands (Edit: No, not thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands to millions, in hindsight) of unironic communists on reddit, twitter, and every other major platform are totally okay, right? Last time I checked they killed a hell of a lot more than the National Socialists as well.

Hell, while we're at it, how many have capitalists and democracies killed? Every political system has blood on its hands, stop being a hello kittying crybaby and acknowledge that, there's no "Nazis" under your bed waiting.

Edited August 8, 2021 by ThatZenoGuy
Numbers.

[killjoy1941]

25 minutes ago, ThatZenoGuy said:

Right, but the thousands upon thousands (Edit: No, not thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands to millions, in hindsight) of unironic communists on reddit, twitter, and every other major platform are totally okay, right? Last time I checked they killed a hell of a lot more than the National Socialists as well.

Hell, while we're at it, how many have capitalists and democracies killed? Every political system has blood on its hands, stop being a hello kittying crybaby and acknowledge that, there's no "Nazis" under your bed waiting.

 

I'd advise not even going down that route - we've actual fascists enough IRL. What possible benefit is gained from challenging any single online edge-lord extremist? Extend that to a group?

Don't feed the trolls and let the game progress. 😉

 

[Cptbarney]

3 hours ago, killjoy1941 said:

 

I'd advise not even going down that route - we've actual fascists enough IRL. What possible benefit is gained from challenging any single online edge-lord extremist? Extend that to a group?

Don't feed the trolls and let the game progress. 😉

 

Ye, although mister doug could calm down on hating on cartoon avatars for a bit.

Only thing we can do is wait like any other patch, only thing is this will most likely break or make the game, since it will fundamentally change the game for good.

[Fishyfish]

All you need is fish. 

[admiralsnackbar]

My fear about the core patch is that it will be a campaign that locks in the features that make the game (certain admiral missions) infuriating. 

1. Stealth warships

2. Ships that randomize by encounter (randomized by campaign is fine)
3. only being able to customize a single class of warship. With the rest of your fleet at the mercy of rnjesus 
4. No control over your own divisions going into a battle (best hope they're positioned correctly)
5. Random enemy fleet positions
6. Bad ship handling and annoying division UI management

etc. 

Being able to save mid-battle does solve some of those issues so i'm glad to hear that's a thing. 

Stuff like more realistic gunnery, armor, damage and damage control, torpedo protection, etc. Can all be handled with mods. 

[Marshall99]

Nowadays I am a bit silent on this forum, but I am waiting for the update too. And also can't wait to discuss the new stuffs with you guys.