Player Suggestions - January/February

[AedSeVen]

I love that the ability to design the enemy fleet has been implemented. Being able to design all the ships in your fleet and the enemy fleet has been something I have been wanting since I first downloaded the game. Here is a short list of things I would like to see in the next patch. I searched the forum for similar posts but could find none.

Suggestions for Custom Battles:

• Expand the fleet in custom battles to include ships of the same type but with various classes (example: having a fleet of 4 BB; 2 South Dakota Class and 2 Iowa Class)
  • The reason for this is two fold; A) its historically accurate, fleets were made up of ships from various classes ranging through time periods of construction. B) it adds an additional layer of depth to the custom battles for design nuts like myself. This is a feature that I believe could be easily implemented and would not have an overburdening effect on players or AI. Casual players can just build the one ship per type and start battle, while AI behavior could be kept the same (building the one ship per type). This feature could be capped at two or three ship classes per type for UI or load time reasons. I invite comments on how much or if any cap there should be.
• Include additional players from different countries in custom battles
  • Being able to play a 1v2, 2v1, 2v2 in custom battles is just something I would like to do. I'm not sure how this would be implemented as it would drastically change the UI for the Country VS Country screen to include the additional country selection options column(s). A possible work around would be to add a line between the "country" and "technology year" for the additional player country(s) and keep the hull limit per country (now faction) layout unchanged. In the "design screen" this could be implemented in two ways; first the "You/Enemy" button could be expanded to include "Allied/Enemy2" and allow the player to design ships from the selected country. Another way would be to simple give the "You" or "Enemy" player access to the hulls and ship features of that additional country, but prevent cross contamination (example: in an Anglo-French fleet the British hulls would have British towers/funnels/guns/names while the French have French.) I have no idea which would be easier to implement and therefore more likely to be done.

Suggestions for General Purpose:

• Add scout planes
  • The devs have already said that they were not going to include planes/aircraft carriers as this is supposed to be a game about dreadnoughts and the introduction of aircraft in a large way really spelt the end for the era of dreadnoughts. This is also the reason AA guns do not exist. That being said I think that the inclusion of scout planes purely as a means to find enemy ships and increase accuracy would be a welcome addition, however, I can see why the devs may never get around to including it.
• Adjust ship detection and recognition.
  • Firstly, I would like to see the standard "smoke detected to the..." changed to something more like "*ship name* reports smoke bearing X degrees". Additionally the compass should be redone to include degrees. This would greatly help the player get there ship on a more accurate bearing, in particular when the enemy is retreating and has gone out of visual range. 
  • Detection ranges are too short in optimal conditions. Especially in later techs. The range that enemy ships could be detected is much higher in real life than in the game according to the historical documentation I have read. I understand that this may be due to balancing issues, but if that is the case than weather should play a much greater role to offset an increase in detection range. Bad weather should give massive penalties to detection, which is historically accurate.
  • Ship recognition...sigh...ok. It takes far too long in my opinion for a ship to be recognized. I would like to see recognition speeds be increased by 50-75%. It should be child's play to determine whether a ship is a DD or a BB especially if the ship is facing broadside on (sideways). To offset this adjustment I think that the information gleaned from recognition should be reduced. Only the most basic of information: ship class (not individual name), speed, armament, and maybe armor should be given to the player. This is more historically accurate than knowing all the intricate detail of the enemy ship and would, I think anyway, fairly offset the recognition speed for game balance sake.

 

[Nick Thomadis]

Here is an update of what has been developed and what comes next based on your suggestions.

List of developed additions based on the previous feedback post:
- Design the ships of the AI opponent in Custom Battles
- Make friendly ships to auto-evade torpedoes
- Make friendly fire check for ships
- Ability to name all ships in the campaign
- Accuracy improvement close range / early tech

Confirmed new features for the next patches:
- Ship refit in campaign
- Task forces/Campaign movement (it was already planned but it was also widely requested)
- More sea roles (related to task forces)
- More events and peace time mechanics (it was already planned but it was also widely requested)
- Improved AI (Beta 1.03)
- Auto-Design improvement (Beta 1.03)
- Ships turning too fast to dodge torps or to stay in formation (Bug fixed in Beta 1.03)
- Secondary guns more effective (Beta 1.03)
- AI can switch to HE evaluating not only penetration but also the angle of target (Beta 1.03)
- Some important fixes for evasion/division controls (In process Beta 1.03)
- Ships sink more gradually (Beta 1.03)
- Flash Fires/Ammo detonations should affect ammo storage.

[The PC Collector]

4 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

- More events and peace time mechanics (it was already planned but it was also widely requested)

It was widely requested because given the nature of the game, even for Early Access standards, the game can't be considered functional without this. I can't wait to have this making the game finally functional!

[T_the_ferret]

4 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Here is an update of what has been developed and what comes next based on your suggestions.

List of developed additions based on the previous feedback post:
- Design the ships of the AI opponent in Custom Battles
- Make friendly ships to auto-evade torpedoes
- Make friendly fire check for ships
- Ability to name all ships in the campaign
- Accuracy improvement close range / early tech

Confirmed new features for the next patches:
- Ship refit in campaign
- Task forces/Campaign movement (it was already planned but it was also widely requested)
- More sea roles (related to task forces)
- More events and peace time mechanics (it was already planned but it was also widely requested)
- Improved AI (Beta 1.03)
- Auto-Design improvement (Beta 1.03)
- Ships turning too fast to dodge torps or to stay in formation (Bug fixed in Beta 1.03)
- Secondary guns more effective (Beta 1.03)
- AI can switch to HE evaluating not only penetration but also the angle of target (Beta 1.03)
- Some important fixes for evasion/division controls (In process Beta 1.03)
- Ships sink more gradually (Beta 1.03)
- Flash Fires/Ammo detonations should affect ammo storage.

Oh... so wait the stuff taken from all the suggestions are only very small things or stuff that was already planned anyway?

[akd]

Regarding early light cruisers, they look very strange currently, mainly because the AI consistently over-arms them and the larger main guns are either all fully-enclosed gunhouses (7 inch guns of all Marks) or are fully-enclosed gunhouses in their Mark I versions (5-inch and 6-inch guns) like those seen on battleships and large armoured cruisers.  They look silly and are often placed on hulls in ways that should be totally non-functional.

• Please use open / shielded mounts for all light cruisers (2nd class cruisers, protected cruisers) guns of all marks up through at least the mid-20s. (Omaha-class of 1923 is probably the first, although a weirdo in many ways.) Only after that date do fully-enclosed gunhouses (with 1 or multiple guns) make an appearance on light cruisers.
• Add open / shielded single 7-inch and 8-inch guns as possible armament for light cruisers to represent early Elswick-style protected cruisers with this type of armament. Probably limit to 2 per hull.

Edited January 13, 2022 by akd

[Grayknight]

2 hours ago, T_the_ferret said:

Oh... so wait the stuff taken from all the suggestions are only very small things or stuff that was already planned anyway?

it is for the next patch.

@Nick Thomadis I belive now we need a list with accepted stuff for change later on, unleass i am to assume that if there is not on the list we should repost feedback and hope it is accepted for next month?

Anyway the most important things that are required now when it comes to gameplay are things based upon balancing (assuming implementation of the features mentioned by you:

- TBs able to tank alot of damage and survive torpedo strike, sometimes many of them. (I had enemy TB that was 200tones and was sunk with over 59 flooding shots and well over 200s penetrations and overpenetrations.

- Torpedoes being overpowered

- I really do not want to talk about spoting mechnics, but i belive it will need to be adresed
 

[T_the_ferret]

17 minutes ago, Grayknight said:

it is for the next patch.

@Nick Thomadis I belive now we need a list with accepted stuff for change later on, unleass i am to assume that if there is not on the list we should repost feedback and hope it is accepted for next month?

Anyway the most important things that are required now when it comes to gameplay are things based upon balancing (assuming implementation of the features mentioned by you:

- TBs able to tank alot of damage and survive torpedo strike, sometimes many of them. (I had enemy TB that was 200tones and was sunk with over 59 flooding shots and well over 200s penetrations and overpenetrations.

- Torpedoes being overpowered

- I really do not want to talk about spoting mechnics, but i belive it will need to be adresed
 

It says next "patches" and stuff that's for the next patch is marked as being in the beta. I'm mostly wondering if that's all they took from the suggestions

[Prelude_to_Oblivion]

Make it so the ships do what you tell them to. If you want full throttle then full throttle happens. If you want them to turn, they turn. Have it so they don't do anything you do not tell them to do and have them do everything you do tell them to do. I think it is called "controlling the units". I think they use this style of game (controlling units) on a bunch of wargames. It would be cool if you could actually have the units follow your commands vs cutting engines even though you have it at full throttle, turning when they are not instructed to and not firing torpedoes when broadside to the target. Gets really irritating when you are trying to fight a battle like getting up to the enemy warship to attack it but every time anything hits the closest ship it turns right around. Maybe you guys should introduce captains, and have the option to execute the captain for insubordination.

[The PC Collector]

1- Crew should stop manning stations/parts of the ship that reallistically would cost them their life.

2- There should be an option to make the crew abandon the ship when it reaches a certain threshold on either bouyancy or structure (minimum should be around 15-20%). This would make the survival of ships (specially small ones) much more reallistic, and would open the chance to preserve part of the crew when the ship is lost: The higer the threshold set, the more crewmembers can be saved. Also, this could open the door for a mechanic to tow and capture abandoned ships after battles.

[Andvarus]

2 hours ago, The PC Collector said:

2- There should be an option to make the crew abandon the ship when it reaches a certain threshold on either bouyancy or structure (minimum should be around 15-20%). This would make the survival of ships (specially small ones) much more reallistic, and would open the chance to preserve part of the crew when the ship is lost: The higer the threshold set, the more crewmembers can be saved. Also, this could open the door for a mechanic to tow and capture abandoned ships after battles.

I would love to have a towing option for disabled ships

[Norbert Sattler]

Right now when you sink all enemy escort ships in a convoy attack mission, the mission automatically ends with any transports that made it to that point surviving and escaping.

It's be nice if either the mission would not be force-ended, but the player got the option to end it, or keep hunting the transports, or alternatively if the transports would be counted as sunk automatically. I'd prefer the former.

[Norbert Sattler]

Straggle missions should not take damange the ships already had before the mission started into account when calculating VPs.

[Zuikaku]

Ability to equip transports as auxiliary cruisers or commerce raiders an send them to stalk enemy shipping lines. Selecting captains for such ships shoul'd also be very important. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Zuikaku

[Norbert Sattler]

In the research-menu, it'd be nice if there were scrollbars within the list of technologies of a kind.

For example right now, when I look at my unlocked cruiser designs, post 1910 the list is so long I have to scroll down, but when I want to want to close the pop-down list again, I have to scroll up again before being able to do that.

[Captain Meow]

Could there be an option in Settings to manually switch on/off damage from collision of either side's own ships? If your 2 ships accidentally collided with each other & one sank while the other one is heavily damaged, then so be it. Same for enemy ships. It would add so much more realism & thrill. 

 

Also it'd be cool if AI could be even more aggressive in certain conditions. Like if there's one enemy ship that's close to getting destroyed & there's my ship near it, then that enemy one would try to ram my ship before it starts sinking.
I actually haven't seen anyone ramming anyone. (Talking about predreadnought ships)

[The PC Collector]

1- Instead of offering the name in the current fashion, use the historic navy prefixes with the type of ship displayed in a secondary way, or using symbols like  World of Warships/War Thunder does. For example:

BB Dreadnought -> HMS Dreadnought (BB)
CA Blücher -> SMS Blücher (CA)

And so on.
 

2- Add subclasses for the current ship classes. Currently most ship classes comprise several different kinds of ships. For example, batlecruisers right now comprise also fast battleships and large cruisers (CB). Heavy cruisers comprise also Armoured cruisers, which conceptually are closer to battleships and battlecruisers than to heavy cruisers. And Light cruisers comprise also protected cruisers. This make fleet organisation difficult, since you can't easily organise if you have different kind of ships within the same ship class. For example, in the late campaigns I've still found useful to have heavy cruisers built under the older armoured cruiser concept (and the game allows it) and that actual light cruisers (with next to no armour) aren't really usable due to the AI tendence to slap as many light guns as it can on their designs.

So, basically, my proposal here is to split the current classes in the following subclasses:

BC: Although it comprises three kind of different classes, they fit more or less the same role, so not a real change is needed, specially since there is difficult to say where the fast battleship ends, and where the battlecruiser starts. But there could be a differentiation between Battlecruisers and large cruisers, either depending of the hull used, or with a threshold taking the gun caliber used in account, since large cruisers used smaller guns than battlecruisers.

CA: Split them between Armoured cruisers and Heavy cruisers taking in account the gun calliber and the armour: cruisers equipping guns heavier than 9 inches or having more than a certain armour thickness (depeding on the era) should be classified as armoured cruisers.

CL: Split them between Light cruisers and protected cruisers depending on the armour.

Edited January 15, 2022 by The PC Collector

[Andvarus]

Not 100% sure if this is the right place to post it but look what I just found out.

I was just playing around with the game when I saw this! Was there an hotfix or was this possible all the time?? Cause this Feature was requested for the longest time iirc. 

 

[Norbert Sattler]

If you mean the key+click combinations, they were available from the very first release.

The tooltip window to show it right on screen, instead of "only" behind the key-bindings help window at the top right of the screen was also added quite some time before the Steam Release.

[Tycondero]

I have a small (perhaps premature) suggestion for the campaign gameplay that I would like to make.

- Have your nation's shipbuilding capacity be limited by the number of shipbuilding yards available. 

Currently, we can build dozens of ships simultaneously if we have the funds. In reality, the number of available yards was a big factor in how many ships could be build and how fast a shipbuilding program could be realized. Great Britain had many companies and yards available so that they could even support foreign build programs. Germany and especially France had much fewer yards/companies available, which meant that serious concessions had to be made to the building program/strategy. Implementing this would diversify the naval strategies of nations even more. Furthermore, it would be a strategic choice to expand the total capacity. Nation events could tie into this as well. For example a continuous stream of orders could allow companies to expand their business whereas idle yards could mean that companies go bankrupt, thereby limiting the total capacity of your nation. 

[SiWi]

the events window should be scroll-able downwards to check for old event

[Maik1508]

First i like this game a lot it is everything i ever dreamed of for a warship game But I would like to see an option that you can build more different ships of the same type that will make the game much better and more fun to play

[The PC Collector]

5 hours ago, Tycondero said:

I have a small (perhaps premature) suggestion for the campaign gameplay that I would like to make.

- Have your nation's shipbuilding capacity be limited by the number of shipbuilding yards available. 

Currently, we can build dozens of ships simultaneously if we have the funds. In reality, the number of available yards was a big factor in how many ships could be build and how fast a shipbuilding program could be realized. Great Britain had many companies and yards available so that they could even support foreign build programs. Germany and especially France had much fewer yards/companies available, which meant that serious concessions had to be made to the building program/strategy. Implementing this would diversify the naval strategies of nations even more. Furthermore, it would be a strategic choice to expand the total capacity. Nation events could tie into this as well. For example a continuous stream of orders could allow companies to expand their business whereas idle yards could mean that companies go bankrupt, thereby limiting the total capacity of your nation. 

As a difficulty option, would be interesting. As a core feature, it would make any country besides Great Britain and maybe the US pretty much unplayable, as playing any other nation would mean that you will be insta and perma blockaded the second you get into a war against one of them, and you have no hope of winning that war, since unlike in reality, the tech system doesn't allow to have significant tech advantages that could counter their numbers.

Edited January 16, 2022 by The PC Collector

[AurumCorvus]

One really, really odd deviation from history that just became obvious to me today: The fact that we always focus our fire on one ship.

Apart from crossing the T or similar situations, naval doctrine (especially prominent in WWI) had ships engage their opposite numbers down the line. This helped individualize shell splashes and applied equal damage to all in the opposing division. It's not until radar and shell dyes in WWII that you get multiple ships focusing on the same ship (apart from numerical superiority like the British BCs at Jutland, where specific orders were given to double a certain ship in the line).

So, that's my suggestion. One more button that flips between "engage division" and "concentrate fire". When we concentrate fire, apply a penalty like the mixed-main caliber penalty. Mitigate with techs and radar.

[Norbert Sattler]

1 hour ago, AurumCorvus said:

One really, really odd deviation from history that just became obvious to me today: The fact that we always focus our fire on one ship.

Apart from crossing the T or similar situations, naval doctrine (especially prominent in WWI) had ships engage their opposite numbers down the line. This helped individualize shell splashes and applied equal damage to all in the opposing division. It's not until radar and shell dyes in WWII that you get multiple ships focusing on the same ship (apart from numerical superiority like the British BCs at Jutland, where specific orders were given to double a certain ship in the line).

So, that's my suggestion. One more button that flips between "engage division" and "concentrate fire". When we concentrate fire, apply a penalty like the mixed-main caliber penalty. Mitigate with techs and radar.

The way the game works right now though, spreading the fire is actually a disadvantage.

Historically the fire was spread, because being under fire meant a ship couldn't fight as well as one that was not engaged. Right now the closest thing there is to this is a accuracy loss from being hit, but that is currently not significant enough to matter all that much.

Some mechanic that debilitates ships just from being shot at, and not just from getting hit would be nice to make that change worth it.

And it'd be doubly worth having if it also somehow deter TBs and DDs and thus make secondary batteries more realistic and useful without inflating their stats to unhistoric degrees.

[Tycondero]

7 hours ago, The PC Collector said:

As a difficulty option, would be interesting. As a core feature, it would make any country besides Great Britain and maybe the US pretty much unplayable, as playing any other nation would mean that you will be insta and perma blockaded the second you get into a war against one of them, and you have no hope of winning that war, since unlike in reality, the tech system doesn't allow to have significant tech advantages that could counter their numbers.

I don't think so that this feature would necessary make it impossible to tackle Great Britain or the United States. However, in the game there will already be a disbalance as Great Britain or the United States have more funds for the naval program than the other nations (at least at the very start of the campaign). Furthermore, you should be able to adjust the capacity too, just as you can with the maximum displacement that is currently limited by the yard size in the game.  The great thing about taking shipyard number and size into account is that it directly diversifies your strategy. With this it could actually make sense for a nation to focus on quality over quantity and to upgrade rather than scrap ships, which Japan did during the interwar years for instance. It gives the player some extra strategic considerations which should be part of the historical start (as these were historical issues for some nations).

Furthermore, I am pretty sure that the blockade mechanics will be revised in the upcoming versions as we will get taskforces it seems and also at some point submarines (for the campaign gameplay).

The game's campaign will likely feature a historical start and a balanced/equal start scenario option. The same funds and number of yards for each nation could be part of that option. That shouldn't be hard to code.

I hope that my points here could convince you that an implementation of this doesn't need to break the fun of the game.