My general feedback for the current state fo the game (January 2022)

[Rina Ravyn]

I have some things i need to get off my chest.

What are we thinking about salvo control? 

For me, this is quite the dealbreaker, because thanks to irregularity of salvos, you can't really utilize a big broadside the way youd could or want to.

COULD, being the operative work here, because gunnery comes of alot worse than it should. 

Many of you may have noticed this already, but salvos, as they are, have not quite figured out yet what they want to be exactly. The game makes an attempt at firing the guns in salvos, yet refuses to fire more than two turrets in the same breath. 

Once more turrets are in the mix than can be rippled, the game struggles to keep up, especially with mid and low calibers. 

Yeah it's turret 5 here, were currently two salvos behind the first ones so we really gotta get one out now - oh whats that the other guns are waiting for us? well then lets go, - what they just fired? sure we can wait, you know what screw this i think ill just pull the trigger - whats that the other guns are ready and waiting for us? sorry chief, were currently reloading. 

The weirdest part about this is, this is absolutely nothing. 

This isn't true ripple fire, it isn't true salvo fire, and it isn't true rapid continueous fire either. This is a problem, because it DRASTICLY decreases the factual shell weight / Volume / rate of fire, that you could put down range. 

Let's take a BB with 4 turrets and 25s reload.  They've just closed the breaches on the 4 turret, meaning the salvo is ready to go again, and the first two turrets are firing. then the game waits for 3 and 4 taking valueable seconds away. 

Sometimes this is getting so bad that i'm thinking "this turret is probably sitting this salvo out" (<- which in itself is already bad enough), but then after 10 seconds decides to pull the trigger anyway. turning a 25s salvo reaload into 35, and even longer if then that turret has to wait again, for being able to fire. 

 

And then theres naval gunnery / ballistics. 

1.) Shell grouping needs a rework, and fast. Because currently this seems to ripped straight out of world of warships, including the bending of the laws of physics. 
No matter the distance, a shell will not exit the barrel of a gun at an angle. Not 5°, not 10° not, 15°. But exactly 0. 

Dispersion is coming into effect only AFTER the shell leaves the barrel You might - very rarely - see shells from the same turret travelling 300m apart at a distance of 20km, but not at 3.000m

2.) Ships exist below the waterline.

One of the biggest problems i have atm is many many many frustrated hours spent looking at my ships failing to score hits, because water eats shells, like singularities eat matter. Just picture how satisfying it would be, to tear a DDs pants down with a 406mm HE detonating below the waterline, or armor piercing creating a double-flood when over-penetrating. 

 

Fixing both of that would greatly increase not just felt, but also factual accuracy. And even tho it's no new feature for the holy and sacred campaign, it would still benefit it, as well as the other two game modes. 

Id have more, like reworking division management for example, but it isnt nearly as game breaking as the problems listed above. 

Thoughts are welcome. 

 

Rina ❤️

[ColonelHenry]

Well... you should have joined the discussion sooner because all of these had been brought up 2 years ago when it was first released in alpha state. The devs had chosen % instead of shell simulation. People had written books worth of feedback on why the devs should switch to simulation but I think it wans't enough. Now, % isn't bad if done correctly. But for the last 2 years, it was barely worked on regarding the gunnery system so... we're here, with a pretty bad gunnery system where shells are just graphical representation. The "real" shell is the %. If it says that the shell hits, it will hit. If the % say the shell doesn't... well, yea it doesn't. No matter how physics defying it looks.

[Kraut]

Hey Rina,

these strange firing behaviors annoyed me in my last battles too. i had multiple occassions where i thought that half of the turret where just passing on their shot entirely although a firing solution was given, very frustrating.

But firing not always a complete salvo was also a thing, atleast in the german Navy, to find range quick not the complete salvo was fired on the same range and not all together, but in small steps. Firing a whole salvo and see where it lands is or was kinda a british thing, atleast in ww1, if i remember correctly.

as for ur other two points.

If u have not, u will notice soon, that "Ultimate" Admiral is far away from beeing Ultimate... well, maybe Ultimate Arcade, since its even worse than WoWs in terms if Firing ballistics. I mean, i havent played WoWs much, but in WoT shells are actuall projectiles, as far as i know.

While in UA there are no projectiles, except for torpedos. What u see is just a grahical effect. if the cannon actually hits or not is determined before or in the moment of "firing" although nothing bout an animation is fired. Thats also the reason for the extrem absurd dense dispersion on great ranges (16+km) where the dispersion should be not so tight around a ship when the hit chance is only 2%... I have already seen multiple "Projectiles" flying thru parts of ships, not hitting.

I also managed to redirect already !! fired !! shots to another target, if the target is close enough on a thought straigt line from the firing ship to the target or beyond the latter.

Whats also worse thain in WoWs or WoT. u dont need to reload different shell types. U can switch between HE and AP in the midst of a salvo, resulting in some grenades beeing AP and some HE... ... without words.

The game should be called Mobile Admiral atm. Ultimate is def. false advertising.

@ColonelHenry

if i had knew that before, i might have skipped on the game... how can someone want a game thats bout design and battling with said designed ships without actual shells flying thru the air... 

IF the discussion and decision bout that is so old, it explains some other stuff too...

Edited January 22, 2022 by Kraut
additional reply to a previous post

[ColonelHenry]

8 hours ago, Kraut said:

if i had knew that before, i might have skipped on the game... how can someone want a game thats bout design and battling with said designed ships without actual shells flying thru the air... 

IF the discussion and decision bout that is so old, it explains some other stuff too...

I do not want to go around and bad mouth the game. I do want the game to be good and represents the naval combat of the late 1880s --> 1920s faithfully. The rest be damn because I do not care much about WW2 naval combat without aircraft. Again, going for hit chance isn't bad if you can mask the hit chance well. This game just does not do that good enough so the illusion breaks very easily.

[Kraut]

3 hours ago, ColonelHenry said:

I do not want to go around and bad mouth the game. I do want the game to be good and represents the naval combat of the late 1880s --> 1920s faithfully. The rest be damn because I do not care much about WW2 naval combat without aircraft. Again, going for hit chance isn't bad if you can mask the hit chance well. This game just does not do that good enough so the illusion breaks very easily.

Me neither. Im just honest about how i feel bout the current state. if i didnt want it to be better from my point of view, i wouldnt have bothered investing so much time in my feedback and still do. 

But the reality is this. its not our game, its gamelabs game. And they had (or had not) a vision of what they wanted to accomplish with that game. And given its current state after 2 years it becomes more and more clear that their vision of Ultimate Admiral is not what i (and u? @ColonelHenry) expect from a game named Ultimate Admiral.

I think, when u want to develop a game, that its about u to decide what kind of game it will be in the end. I understand, that ppl, that are not developers, have wishes, as i have those myself, but idealy a game developer, atleast if not part of a big company, kinda does some kind of personal-fullfillment when developing a game himself. And it wouldnt be right nor serving said fullfillment if he´d just does everything his actual or potential players want.

My Problem is just, that the Title Ultimate Admiral creates expectations within me. Dunno how others feel about that, but the word Ultimate sets the bar pretty high for me. And the game in its current state, so it feels to me, doesnt even really try to run towards that bar. It seems more like a pretender. He starts running a bit, and then deliberatly stumbles over his own feet to fall over so he doesnt has to fail the jump. 

And Naval Combat in WW2 without planes shouldnt be much more different from that in the 1920, no? Just less time spend cause accuraccy is better and dmg potential is higher, no?

[Kommandant Flauschige]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:10 PM, Kraut said:

I also managed to redirect already !! fired !! shots to another target, if the target is close enough on a thought straigt line from the firing ship to the target or beyond the latter.

I discovered an exploit, particularly useful in Convoy Raids in 1890's when your ships couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside if it were sitting on the gun barrels:

If you target a ship beyond a ship that you want to hit, then literally every shot will hit another ship in the line of fire. It doesn't work as well at more than 2-3km because the shells have a higher trajectory, but I've always laughed at the game that refuses to give me a single hit from under 100m away with 75% accuracy after about 10-15 shots (just because I was firing at the enemy ship's stern), accidentally giving me 100% accuracy on a ship I'm not even aiming at.

I don't even mount torpedoes on my convoy raiders because this exploit works so well.