Quality Of Life Improvements

[Shiki]

Let's dive right in: this game could have been great. It could still be great. It would be even better if the development team actively communicated—or at the very least, hired someone to communicate—as they gave out in the past, but that's neither here nor there. We're not here to beat a thoroughly dead horse. Instead, I'm here to present some (relatively) minor quality-of-life improvements that I've compiled from my experiences playing this game: things I wasn't quite satisfied with, or thought could be done better. This is an alpha, after all, and we're here to test and provide feedback. Here's the feedback.

• Battle
  • Better divisional organization—if we are not allowed to pre-determine the divisions and their heading prior to entry into combat, the game should stop taking four ships of the same type and then making a division of three and then a screen of one.
  • The ideal solution long term would be a 'pre-battle' phase showing a top-down 2-dimensional view of the engaged fleet and any allies: a naval chart aesthetic could be used. Simple slide-and-drop controls could be implemented to quickly separate ships into divisions and organize them efficiently prior to battle, representing the signals that would be naturally given out to separate from cruising groups and order battle formations prior to actually engaging in combat.
  • Turrets ought to have a toggle in battle for 'rapid' and 'salvo' fire: in the former, all guns fire together or with a barely noticeable 'ripple', providing a slight rate-of-fire increase at the cost of a minor amount of accuracy—ideally it should only be toggleable once the enemy has been 'ranged.' The latter would be fire-by-turret, as currently implemented, and would provide no bonuses or maluses. The AI for both enemy and friendly ships should be able to toggle this automatically as required, though you would have the ability to manually countermand the order if so desired.
  • Guns of the same calibre should lock to the slowest loading cycle among them: if you have two quads and a twin turret for 14"/356 mm artillery, the twin should fire at the same rate as the quads. Compensation might be that loading cycle differences are less noticeable.
• Animations
  • Casemates ought to also elevate and depress with their loading cycle. It looks very strange on pre-dreadnought and dreadnought-era warships for their main battery and turreted secondaries to move for their loading animation, while the casemates remain at a flat 0 degrees.
  • Single-cradle artillery (Italian medium-calibre guns prior to the Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco di Savoia, primo Duca degli Abruzzi - yes, that is the actual name of the Duca degli Abruzzi - and American 8in guns prior to Wichita) should depress and elevate all together, as they're on the same slide.
• Models
  • More hulls are, obviously, a must. Since they shouldn't require nearly as much time to implement as a campaign, and the modeling personnel should not be focused on the same work as the programmers associated with that project, smaller bi-monthly or monthly patches might work better- not only will this reduce the pressure on the team in order to deliver on the core patches, since they won't have to cram in as much per update, it would also keep a steady stream of new content in order to keep the existing playerbase interested and to draw in new customers.
    • Potential hulls for consideration include (minimum necessary outlined in bold)
      • Russian Empire / Soviet Russia
        • Rurik.
        • Bogatyr.
        • Svetlana.
        • Pr.26 (Kirov).
        • Pr.26 bis (Maxim Gorky).
        • Pr.68 (Chapaev).
        • Pr. 68 bis (Sverdlov).
        • Izyaslav.
        • Gnevny.
        • Leningrad.
        • Tashkent.
      • Germany / German Empire
        • Moltke / Seydlitz.
        • Derfflinger (can be rescaled to Mackensen & Ersatz Yorck).
        • Emden (1925).
        • Königsberg (K).
        • Nürnberg (N).
        • Type 1934.
        • Type 1936.
        • Type 1936C.
      • Austria-Hungary
        • Much the same as Germany, but including the 'Improved Tegetthoff' (also known as Ersatz Monarch).
      • Italy
        • Conti di Cavour (designed).
        • Conti di Cavour (modernized).
        • Duca d'Aosta.
        • Duca degli Abruzzi.
        • Turbine.
        • Navigatori class.
        • Soldati class.
        • Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro class.
      • France / French Empire
        • Danton.
        • Courbet.
        • Bretagne.
        • Normandie.
        • Duguay-Trouin.
        • Duquesne.
        • Suffren type (all are distinct from one another so different towers are probably necessary).
        • Algérie.
        • La Galissonnière.
        • De Grasse.
        • Mogador.
        • Le Fantasque.
        • Le Hardi.
        • L'Alcyon.
        • Aigle.
      • United Kingdom / British Empire
        • Orion.
        • Iron Duke.
        • Town class subgroups (1900s).
        • Town class subgroups (1930s).
        • County class subgroups (1920s).
        • A class.
        • G class.
        • N class.
        • Tribal class.
        • War Emergency Programme destroyers (Q through Z classes).
      • United States of America
        • USS Texas (1892) - by popular support (and by popular we mean @Cptbarney)
        • Mississippi.
        • Florida.
        • Wyoming.
        • New York.
        • Nevada.
        • "Standard" type (Pennsylvania through Colorado generally only require separate towers).
        • Omaha.
        • Pensacola.
        • "Standard" type (Northampton, Portland, and the Astoria classes all share much in common with one another in regards to the hull- only slight resizing and different superstructures are required).
        • Wichita.
        • Brooklyn.
        • Baltimore.
        • Cleveland.
        • Atlanta.
        • Des Moines.
      • Note: the Brooklyn, Baltimore, Cleveland, and their respective subclasses and refits are all largely based on the Brooklyn type's hull: it would be perfectly easy to only add the base type and then use different towers & tops as required.
      • • Clemson.
        • Farragut.
        • Porter / Somers.
        • Gridley.
        • Benson-Gleaves.
        • Fletcher.
      • Japanese Empire
        • Nagato.
        • Tosa.
        • Amagi.
        • Kii.
        • Furutaka.
        • Aoba.
        • Myōkō.
        • Takao.
          • Specific towers:
          • Takao — 1937, as modernized.
          • Atago — 1944, as sunk.
          • Chōkai — 1927-1944, as she never received a refit.
          • Maya — Post-AA-cruiser conversion.
          • Takao Kai — Larger version of the hull available 1930-1940, cancelled as a result of the 1930 LNT.
        • Mogami.
        • Agano.
        • Ōyodo.
        • Ibuki.
        • Sakura.
        • Asashio.
        • Otori.
      • China / Chinese Empire
        • Ning Hai & Ping Hai
  • A bi-monthly or monthly stream or devblog of sorts to show off models in progress would be an excellent way to garner reputation and support.
• Designer (parts)
  • Blast bags. These are an absolute must. See right: note Richelieu's black blast bags. Every country used them at one point or another, and they figure prominently in many photographs of modern and older warships. A toggle to use them should be available, and they should, of course, be animated to move with the guns.
  • Ideally, turrets of the single, twin, triple, and quadruple variants—with a very few exceptions—should not all be common to a single size. Single-gun turrets should be far slimmer, twin- and triple-gun turrets should provide the best balance of size vs. firepower, and so forth. As it is, many ships can be upgunned without any tradeoffs since 'if you can fit a twin there, you can fit a quadruple there.'
• Designer (balance)
  • Components ought to have more meaning: ideally, the 'modern' warship should require them as an absolute must, not just as an afterthought that eats up weight without being very helpful. Weapons might do more crippling damage to targets, for example, to offset the better benefits acquired.
  • Heavy cruiser armour belt minimum thickness decreased to 20 mm, to allow for the County class's 25 mm as built and the Duquesne's somehow-less-than-that.
• Misc.
  • When mousing over an armour thickness in the Ship Designer, the section of the ship it protects should highlight or otherwise be made visible. This will allow players to know which parts of their ship are in need of protection and which parts can be left with less weight.
  • Ships should pitch and heave far less relative to displacement, particularly in calm seas. Destroyers, of course, will still buck like a wild horse—but 125,000-ton battleships should be a little more stable.
  • Shameless Plug.

This post might be added to as time goes on, as either I come across new portions or they are brought to my attention.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Shiki

[Cptbarney]

@Nick ThomadisEven if you can't reply now or soon, would love too see these implemented when you guys get the chance to do so. Not sure if these would be quicker to implement as well.

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

I also think that the aiming system/mechanics should be changed from the current "two turret" system to a "by gun-size" basis. It's kinda frustrating to do a USS Nevada or USS Pensacola type build only to have half of your main battery turrets keep their accuracy while the other half are hopelessly stuck in the ladder-aiming process with a -400% penalty until that last turret can finally bear against your target. I think it's kind of funny that the only thing that keeps my main battery from firing effectively (and I use that word loosely) is the fact that some turrets have three barrels, while others have two...despite being the same gun caliber.

[SonicB]

5 hours ago, HistoricalAccuracyMan said:

I also think that the aiming system/mechanics should be changed from the current "two turret" system to a "by gun-size" basis. It's kinda frustrating to do a USS Nevada or USS Pensacola type build only to have half of your main battery turrets keep their accuracy while the other half are hopelessly stuck in the ladder-aiming process with a -400% penalty until that last turret can finally bear against your target. I think it's kind of funny that the only thing that keeps my main battery from firing effectively (and I use that word loosely) is the fact that some turrets have three barrels, while others have two...despite being the same gun caliber.

Seconded! It's also very frustrating to have centreline and wing turrets (as in early dreadnought-type battleships and battlecruisers) ranging and firing separately, when the whole point of a unified main battery was to simplify targeting.

The ROF and accuracy differences between different turret types would have to be removed, but these are pretty arcadey and ahistorical anyway. Triple and quad turrets should have a weight, cost, reliability, and possibly barbette size penalty as suggested above, not some random nerf to the individual performance of the guns.

[Jatzi]

On 8/7/2021 at 5:28 PM, SonicB said:

Seconded! It's also very frustrating to have centreline and wing turrets (as in early dreadnought-type battleships and battlecruisers) ranging and firing separately, when the whole point of a unified main battery was to simplify targeting.

The ROF and accuracy differences between different turret types would have to be removed, but these are pretty arcadey and ahistorical anyway. Triple and quad turrets should have a weight, cost, reliability, and possibly barbette size penalty as suggested above, not some random nerf to the individual performance of the guns.

I thought there were RoF differences with triples and quads compared to singles and twins. At least initially right? Or was it mainly reliability. Also turrets don't even jam right now

[SonicB]

1 hour ago, Jatzi said:

I thought there were RoF differences with triples and quads compared to singles and twins. At least initially right? Or was it mainly reliability. Also turrets don't even jam right now

There are rate of fire differences at present. I'm arguing for them to be removed in order to allow for unified main battery salvos between different types of turrets in the same calibre. This is because there is little historical evidence to show a significant rate-of-fire penalty between twin, triple and quad mounted guns, at least as part of a warship's main battery.

Reliability is unfortunately not modelled in the game at the moment. I'm hoping this will change in future patches, as it was a critical factor in historical battles and campaigns.

One good example: the King George V class battleships carried ten 14" guns in two quad and one twin turret. They were capable of two salvos per minute, which is broadly comparable to other late Treaty-era and post-Treaty battleships with triple turrets, and earlier twin-turret ships such as the Queen Elizabeths and Colorados. However, the quad turrets were notably unreliable throughout their career - it's arguable that the Battle of the Denmark Strait was decided not when Hood was sunk, but when Prince of Wales's aft turret jammed and her forward turret guns suffered repeated faults, forcing her to retreat.

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[SonicB]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Mechanical failure sounds all very nice, in theory, but I kinda think it would just create levels of frustrations.

To have random mechanical failures on top of damage, at critical monuments of battle and then suffer loss because of it! surely that would be extremely infuriating.

And then to beat the enemy because it had mechanical failure, that would be an anti-climax, the very climax of battle that the game is trying to produce - destruction via the upmost violent means.

Take these… 1) Enemy ships withdrawing and not staying in the fight to be destroyed. 2) Your ships withdrawing from battle because it’s able to continue the fight. 3) The game already has AI retreat.

So adding to retreat via damage and being outnumbered, withdrawals because of mechanical failures, it might actually prolong battles to the point of inhibited action. I don’t think that would sit too well, players want action, not inaction, not disengagement of units because of mechanical failure.

Overall, IMO, mechanical failures would only lead to multiple levels of frustrations.

I feel this is just part of the arcade/simulation argument seen all the time on this forum. Personally, I don't feel it would be frustrating, because there is always an element of player choice involved. Do you invest in the shiny, new, unproven technology, knowing it might fail you but also might provide a big advantage, or stick with what you know works? This is a question faced by every admiralty in history, so it seems strange to leave it out of the game completely, especially since in reality malfunctions played a  part in almost every significant naval battle I can name.

Nevertheless, your opinion is valid. Perhaps a good compromise might be to add a greater critical hit chance to ship systems, and more potential maluses - temporary or permanent - as a result. For turrets, this could be modified by the number of guns mounted to add a decent alternative to RoF/accuracy nerfs. For example, one or two guns knocked out, slower rotation, partly blocked turret arcs, turret completely jammed, that kind of thing.

[DougToss]

@Steeltrap, @akd this is our kinda guy. Glad to have some grogs here who have done the reading. 

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Intrepid_Arty]

9 hours ago, SonicB said:

I feel this is just part of the arcade/simulation argument seen all the time on this forum. Personally, I don't feel it would be frustrating, because there is always an element of player choice involved. Do you invest in the shiny, new, unproven technology, knowing it might fail you but also might provide a big advantage, or stick with what you know works? This is a question faced by every admiralty in history, so it seems strange to leave it out of the game completely, especially since in reality malfunctions played a  part in almost every significant naval battle I can name.

Nevertheless, your opinion is valid. Perhaps a good compromise might be to add a greater critical hit chance to ship systems, and more potential maluses - temporary or permanent - as a result. For turrets, this could be modified by the number of guns mounted to add a decent alternative to RoF/accuracy nerfs. For example, one or two guns knocked out, slower rotation, partly blocked turret arcs, turret completely jammed, that kind of thing.

An alternative compromise would be to keep it in the campaign, you have the option to research technologies, and you can start using them something like halfway through their development, but with a high risk of breakdowns (or with powder technologies, unplanned detonation), and further research decreases the risk of failure until it's gone. 

[Danvanthevacuumman]

map

[Jatzi]

On 8/11/2021 at 3:38 PM, Skeksis said:

Mechanical failure sounds all very nice, in theory, but I kinda think it would just create levels of frustrations.

To have random mechanical failures on top of damage, at critical monuments of battle and then suffer loss because of it! surely that would be extremely infuriating.

And then to beat the enemy because it had mechanical failure, that would be an anti-climax, the very climax of battle that the game is trying to produce - destruction via the upmost violent means.

Take these retreats: 1) Enemy ships withdrawing and not staying in the fight to be destroyed. 2) Your ships withdrawing from battle because it’s able to continue the fight.

So adding to retreat (via damage and being outnumbered, already in-game), withdrawals because of mechanical failures, it might actually prolong battles to the point of inhibited action. I don’t think that would sit too well, players want action, not inaction, not disengagement of units because of mechanical failure.

Overall, IMO, mechanical failures would only lead to multiple levels of frustrations.

Of course it'd be frustrating. That's the point? Oh no it makes the game harder we shouldn't include it! They were real issues and I'm sure real ships were sunk or damaged because their guns jammed. It would be a massive disservice not to include it. RTW includes it and it's fine. Just a fact of life in early battles really. You get used to it.

 

I would heavily disagree any kind of compromise is needed. So what if its frustrating. It's what happened in real life, imagine how commanders felt during an actual battle. Imagine how sub captains felt when their MK 14's weren't working in the first few years of WWII. Or how a torpedo bomber pilot felt after losing half his squadron just for there to be no hits because of duds. This isn't World of Warships. Weapon reliability is an important part of warfare. Simply massive. It would keep people from just slapping on quad 20in guns on everything too. There is a reason quad turrets weren't widely used, or even triples for awhile. They were unreliable. This was a major consideration in design and combat and the game suffers from it not being included. I simply cannot fathom how someone would think it would be ok to ignore such an important thing just because it's a little inconvenient at times for the player

Edited August 16, 2021 by Jatzi

[Skeksis]

...
 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Finnwolf88]

18 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

You can't deny that there's a sizeable market that would find mechanical failures gameplay frustrating. Many here don't speak up for those and IMO keeps the debate alittle one sided, but that doesn't mean that that market, those players, don't exists.   

I think GameLabs would be very wary of NA results, in that the game could have gone too hardcore and cut out a sizeable chunk of the market. Along with that, the general series is very different from this because of the ship assembly tool, this is going to appeal to a very large portion of market. 

Making the game better or not? it's all very opinionated, even dogmatic, except for one thing, balancing the game for the targeted audience/market. Just a few tweaks here or there could make a difference to the wider audience.

Mechanical failures wouldn't be missed. 

Oh and you know rage-quitting is real and it's always ever about it being too hard but always about being frustrated. 
 

I agree on both arguments. Mechanical failures would be furiating, but at the same time, in my opinion, needed for the realism.

This game is very much about realism. Having some 10-15 14" barrels firing at 10km range and landing a hit every 20 minutes is also frustrating, but people are not complaining about that too much. IMO having failure mechanics for engines, guns and torpedoes would be needed, but in order to appeal to a larger audience, add the option to disable them.

I would like to see failures to be quite rare and much less frequent the more you research the technologies.

[Cptbarney]

@Nick ThomadisIs there any possible way a few of these suggestions in shikis post could make it's way into Core Alpha 1 at all? Or will it be planned for later updates?

[Jatzi]

10 hours ago, Skeksis said:

You can't deny that there's a sizeable market that would find mechanical failures gameplay frustrating. Many here don't speak up for those and IMO keeps the debate alittle one sided, but that doesn't mean, that market, those players, don't exists.   

I think GameLabs would be very wary of NA results, in that the game could have gone too hardcore and cut out a sizeable chunk of the market. Along with that, the general series is very different from this because of the ship assembly tool, this is going to appeal to a very large portion of market (not necessarily the realism crowd).  

Making the game better or not? it's all very opinionated, even dogmatic, except for one thing, balancing the game for the targeted audience/market. Just a few tweaks here or there could make a difference to the wider audience.

Mechanical failures wouldn't be missed. 

Oh and you know rage-quitting is real and it's always never about it being too hard but always about being frustrated. 
 

They have arguable hurt themselves massively by trying to toe the line between arcade and sim. It's too arcadey for the hardcore people. It's too hardcore for the WoWs crowd. They need to pick a side and they're already leaning towards the sim side so they might as well shift that way. Also weapon reliability isnt that big of a shift in that direction. Also also they talk about realism in their blog posts and whatnot so in order for them to not be even more hypocritical they should include it.

You're argument is like saying ammo detonations shouldnt being the game because it's so FRUSTRATING when I'm winning and all of a sudden my whole ship blows up. It's the worst let me tell you. Ruins the whole game.

 

That whole bit about rudders has reminded me that rudders don't jam in the game which is also a little weird. I'm fine with a slower turning rudder if the steering mechanism is damaged and then maybe ad hoc repaired but unless you're using a semi-balanced rudder(had to look up what the differences between those 3 were) if the steering mechanism is damaged the rudder becomes jammed. The whole purpose of the semi-balanced rudder is to make the rudder return to a neutral setting should the steering mechanism fail. So maybe they'll add it in? If you have the balanced or unbalanced rudder if the steering system is hit you get a jammed rudder until it's repaired, whereas you won't get a jammed rudder if you use the semi-balanced rudder. For some trade-off. I'm pretty jaded so that's not gonna happen but it'd be nice. 

https://www.marineinsight.com/naval-architecture/types-rudders-used-ships/ Here's a quick article I read about them btw if anyone is interested. I honestly didn't know different rudders were a thing, never heard it talked about before in ship design. It's always armor scheme and turret layout and machinery layout. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Jatzi

[Skeksis]

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Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Evil4Zerggin]

Mechanical failure doesn't have to be a purely arcade-versus-simulation thing; I don't think we've exhausted the set of win-win adjustments yet. If it was just as simple as a chance to not be able to fire when the salvo clock comes around, it would be no worse than missing (in fact it would be less bad, since you don't use up the ammo), and even that would be enough to replace the fire rate differences between turrets of different gun counts, allowing KGV/Nevada/Pensacola etc. setups to fire as a single battery rather than being clearly unconscionable as it is now. I think this would be an improvement compared to the current system for both camps: the arcade camp can then slap on the turrets they like, and the simulation camp gets at least a rudimentary representation of reliability rather than nothing. Possible further adjustments towards realism could be negotiated later.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Evil4Zerggin

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Cptbarney]

Hope we the things here implemented into the base game.

[Commander Reed]

What can I say other than we need all of this!

[Cptbarney]

Yes, we need old boag texas in. But very nice update regardless.