Feedback and disappointment after a long break

[FFire31]

So I came back to the game after a very long pause, hoping for the campaign. It's still not there but I decided to play a custom battle with a full fleet designed by myself.

And I'm very disappointed...

The AI is still a mess. Pathfinding is very ankward. Escorting ships will guard all around capitals without trying to go close to the ennemy. You need to instruct them yourself in which direction they should go to attack the ennemy. You still can't set formation before the battle. Changing formations, adding a ship to a battle line is something far beyond your captains capabilities without much confusion. So I ended in managing each ships independantly myself. But if you do so, you'll sooner or later ate some very precise torpedoes. Your ships will never try to avoid them automatically, except maybe if you give them in full AI control. Your own destroyers are too dumb to try to shoot simultaneously their own torpedoes. You can't use smoke with a single ship. And many more issues.

Your ships can only targets two ennemies (one with the main guns, another with secondary). If there's ennemies on both sides, some of your casemates will never shoot. And don't tell me there's only two fire directors on a BB. Btw casemates or secondary guns are such a joke... But maybe that's historically correct.

The worst is the damage model. Sometimes your BB will struggle to sunk a lone cruiser, because it will keep shooting at already destroyed or flooded compartments. Sometimes ships suddenly blow off from a turret explosion (I'm ok with that). Sometimes you can empty your magazines on the ennemy fleet without great effects. Ships never capsize, because there's no difference from taking shots from port or starboard. Armor keep full efficiency even after deflecting hundred of shots. Ai ships seems to be very efficient at pumping flooded compartments. Ennemy ships are ankwards designs (less than before, but still) but seems always much more accurate or lucky than yours.

Atm battles are just non enjoyable. You struggle more with your own ships, trying to direct them, than against the ennemy. And when you finally manage to have them do what you want them to do, sometimes, but not always, it seems that you face a cheating AI. Maybe I'm a bad player, but I never ever complained against difficulty. Here I just can't understand why designs with the best guns/tech/directors available needs 30 mins of pounding to simply sunk a small destroyer at torpedo range.

I had great expectations from that game, because I was always interested in naval combat and liked Nick Thomadis previous work. But at the moment I'm very worried with the state of the game. Seems that you find more important to add new hulls and modules rather than improving the game experience.

I will still kept an eye on the game, but...

Edited November 1, 2021 by FFire31

[Commander Reed]

Agreed. I basically only play this game to design my own ship classes, and occasionally test them VS other ship. But nothing more, the gameplay is pretty terrible. The ship designer might be the only fun part at the moment.

[madham82]

29 minutes ago, FFire31 said:

Your ships can only targets two ennemies (one with the main guns, another with secondary). If there's ennemies on both sides, some of your casemates will never shoot. And don't tell me there's only two fire directors on a BB. 

The worst is the damage model. Sometimes your BB will struggle to sunk a lone cruiser, because it will keep shooting at already destroyed or flooded compartments. Sometimes ships suddenly blow off from a turret explosion (I'm ok with that). Sometimes you can empty your magazines on the ennemy fleet without great effects. Ships never capsize, because there's no difference from taking shots from port or starboard. Armor keep full efficiency even after deflecting hundred of shots. Ai ships seems to be very efficient at pumping flooded compartments. Ennemy ships are ankwards designs (less than before, but still) but seems always much more accurate or lucky than yours.

Well there are only two directors for the main or secondary battery (though secondaries could have 4 on some ships). That's standard in design. What you are wanting is the ability to revert to local gun control. I think most are on your side there and is should be possible. At the same time, local gun control is horrendously inaccurate unless the range is close enough where the crew could clearly see their round. Even that is problematic when you think of shell splashes and smoke down at the gun level.

I think most of the damage problems come down to a few of the hull modules creating unrealistic damage handling (max bulkheads, anti flood, etc...). Another big issue is the magic hulls with stats that reduce huge amounts of damage. Others can probably describe the issues better, but I am with you on the damage model. Just have to keep in mind what is feasible to simulate and balance that with this being a game. 

[FFire31]

11 minutes ago, madham82 said:

Well there are only two directors for the main or secondary battery (though secondaries could have 4 on some ships). That's standard in design. What you are wanting is the ability to revert to local gun control. I think most are on your side there and is should be possible. At the same time, local gun control is horrendously inaccurate unless the range is close enough where the crew could clearly see their round. Even that is problematic when you think of shell splashes and smoke down at the gun level.

I think most of the damage problems come down to a few of the hull modules creating unrealistic damage handling (max bulkheads, anti flood, etc...). Another big issue is the magic hulls with stats that reduce huge amounts of damage. Others can probably describe the issues better, but I am with you on the damage model. Just have to keep in mind what is feasible to simulate and balance that with this being a game. 

Thanks that's informative.

Yes I was thinking about that precise moment where your BB is swarmed by torpedoes boats but your casemates gun does not try to shoot them even at very short range.