Feedback Post (Long)

[Kane]

So took a break from the game for a couple weeks.  Came back for a campaign play-through.

I began at the earliest start date and intended to go all the way to ending.  However, my schedule is getting weird so don't know when I'll get to finish this campaign.  In any case I doubt the issues I've seen are going to change.  So current campaign has gone up to 1930.

This is a long post.  It is a mix of all the problems, curiosities, and wish-list I've come up with doing the campaign.

Playing as Germany.
 

1. There is way too much World of Warships in this game.

A) Angling
The angling mechanic is pure bullshit and really needs to go away. Its ahistorical and bad game play. Did the Germans win at Jutland when they arrived bow-in to the British fleet? No, they had to turn around and run.

I know I've pointed this out before. But if angling were anywhere near as effective IRL as it is in this game, all battleships would mount all their guns in front, no one would ever go broadside.

 

On that note, I pretty much never see the AI go broadside voluntarily, and I've never once seen it form a battle-line with its battleships And why would it when its been programmed around this ridiculous mechanic. So much for gunnery duels between fleets or even individual battleships.

This needs to change.
 

In fact in some cases this has gotten worse in recent updates with angling now causing increased amounts of blocks as opposed to just ricochets.

Devs, if you feel you must have an angling mechanic for game play purposes, then it needs to increase incidents of partial pens, not give ridiculously good odds of block or ricochet for zero damage. As I've stated before, there is ample historical evidence and photography of shells penetrating at high angles, and the oblong holes they leave when they do.

Crossing the T was considered optimal. It would not be if angling your ship had anywhere near the kind of effect present in this game.

B Smoke

Words cannot express how much I hate the BS mechanic of smoking-up with destroyers and light cruisers. Smoke was for covering a retreat, or hiding a damaged vessel to give it time to retreat. I've never once read about a group of destroyers smoking-up during an attack run. Taffy-3's destroyers didn't do it, and they were attacking multiple battleships including Yamato.  HMS Prince of Wales laid smoke when she had to retreat from Bismarck.  That is how smoking is supposed to be used.

How is a ship supposed to actually see where its aiming its guns or torpedoes while surrounding itself with a cloud of black smoke?

It can't.

If I want to play World of Warships, I will play World of Warships. Devs. You're Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Please act like it.


2) GUI / Interface
A) This game has a host of GUI / Interface problems that need to be addressed.

If I use the language I'd like to, I'll get banned from the forum. But this BS of de-selecting my current ship / division whenever one of my ships is sunk needs to be fixed yesterday.
Ship gets sunk, pop-up text comes up telling me the ship is sunk, my current ship selection gets de-selected, and now my battleship gets torpedoed

B There needs to be a pop-up window when shipyard construction is complete. Its very easy to get distracted fighting a war, and forget to check back on the progress of the shipyard. Before you know it, you have a bunch of shiny new designs you can't build because you haven't been studiously expanding your shipyard. Be less of an issue if it got a pop-up like techs, etc.

C) Every turn in a war I have mandatory battles pop-up, and I can't even exit the pop-up except to fight the battle or withdraw my ships. (Often can't even do the latter). This needs to stop. A player has several things to do each turn. Adjust research priority, build / refit ships, remember to expand shipyard, etc. Its easy to start forgetting things after you've been forced into 2, 3, or 4 battles in a row before you can even start on them.

 

Since this is a turn-based game, maybe let me decide which order I want to handle things on my turn.



3) AI & Ship Battles.

 

The AI, oh the AI.

A) Ships set to Screen need to be programmed to put themselves between the enemy and the ships they're screening. It is infuriating watching all my escorts hide behind my battleships.

B On A) incidents of torpedo friendly-fire would be extremely rare if my destroyers quit hiding behind my larger ships.

C) The AI often knows things it shouldn't. If enemy ships can't pen my deck, they'll start out the fight using nothing but high-explosive. If they can't pen my deck they probably can't pen my belt, and they'll stick to he even as the range closes. Until the AI identifies what they're shooting at, there should be no way for it to know whether or not it can pen my ships, and thus that it needs to switch to HE.

 

Even once identifying it, its debatable that the AI should know it needs to do this. Its not like the US knew the armor thickness of the Yamato-class. In fact the US had bad information on both the ship's guns and armor.  Granted in some cases it can make sense.  A cruiser captain doesn't need schematics of an enemy battleship to know his cruiser guns probably won't pen its armor.  But battleship vs. battleship, there should be a lot less certainty here.

 

Unless there's going to be some kind of espionage mechanic added to the game, this needs to be addressed.

 

D) The game's description says that ships will "intelligently select targets".
No. They won't. I've played several battles just letting ships choose their targets, and their captains need to be beaten with hoses. I've watched battleships dump ridiculous amounts of main battery shells into the ocean trying to hit tiny destroyers or moderate / negligible threat cruisers when much more valuable (and dangerous) battleships were well within range and much more likely to be successfully hit. Insult often added to injury when said tiny ships being targeted are further away, and in the firing arcs of fewer guns.

 

To say nothing of all the valuable torpedoes I see cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers waste on other destroyers, rather than saving them for the larger targets they're meant for.

 

As it stands the AI seems to prioritize targets in reverse order of size going from TB/Destroyer - light cruiser - cruiser - battlecruiser - battleship.

 

The AI can't even intelligently allocate its guns. It would be fine if it were preferentially targeting small ships with the secondaries, and big ships with the primaries. But it does no such thing. It does what I said above. Or if it does decide that its a good day to shoot a battleship, it will target all guns on that battleship. Never mind the destroyers coming in for torpedo runs that would be perfect targets for secondaries. (Sure would be nice if my destroyers would do torpedo runs when set to AI, rather than hiding at the back of the map or behind my battleships.)

 

AND. I routinely see cruisers impotently dumping main battery shells into battleships while ignoring the destroyers and other cruisers they should be targeting to keep said ships from harassing my capital ships.
 

In short, I think an effort has been made to make the ships target intelligently. But the programming is so full of holes the opposite effect often ensues.

 

There needs to be a serious rework in how each class of ship chooses its targets.

 

 

E) The surrender mechanic is a good start but needs expanding on. A lot of battles that were fun have devolved into tedium time wasting. Why? I'm pumping shells into an enemy battleship. Its lost its engines and rudder. Yet. Somehow. It keeps turning so that it is always getting its bullshit armor-angling. This does nothing but make it take longer to bury a ship that is already dead.

 

So many otherwise enjoyable battles reduced to tedium when I'm forced to sail circles around a doomed ship, trying to to get that seemingly 0° angle that won't result in most or all of my shells bouncing.

 

The AI needs to be updated to understand when it has lost, and act on it to surrender or, even better, scuttle its ships.  When you're out all engines, rudder, down to 5% structure, and have 90% of your ship flooded, and outnumbered 5-1 by superior ships....you're not going to pull out an 11th hour victory.

 

For that matter. We really need an option to scuttle our ships during a battle.


F)  The AI needs to have its cloaking technology removed.  In this whole campaign I have NEVER seen the enemy before he sees me.  It did not matter what my ship comp was, or what his was.  The AI has always seen me first, and had ample time to attack me before I ever see him.  Send battleship first?  They see it first and attack it.  Send destroyers first?  They get seen first and attacked.

This needs fixing badly.

Update: I have freaking radar on my ships and the enemy is still attacking me while remaining undetected.
 

4) Campaign

 

A) Fleets

 

Others have said it. But permanent / semi-permanent fleet formations need to be a thing. I keep having to manually reassemble my fleets because three or four ships took damage, and so they all went home. Seriously when my fleet is 18 battleships, 30 cruisers, and 80 destroyers, minor (and I emphasize minor) damage to 3 battleships, 5 cruisers, and 10 destroyers should not be enough to send the entire fleet home.

 

For that matter. Should a ship really go home just because its received damage? At one point it took me 6 tries to get 2 battleships into the Eastern Med. Because every time I tried to send them, they'd get into a minor skirmish along the way, one of them would take 1% or so damage, and then go home.

"I say Hanz, that cruiser hit us with an HE shell.  The fire has ruined the paint on the deck."

"I'm sure it will be fine captain."

"Nein!  Take my ship back to port immediately!"

 

B Tension

 

The Tension mechanics need a rework. As Germany I've been at war for 30 straight years.

 

At first I was fighting the British and French. Britain died. But my blockade of France made Italy and Austria-Hungary go from allies to enemies. Now I can't have peace. I decimated all three. (No small task in the case of Austria-Hungary who had 280 albeit primitive ships against my 140.)

 

Italy and AH both sue for peace. Great. Except they almost immediately go back to war with me due to my ships in the Med maintaining a blockade on France. It got to the point that both Italy and AH had zero ships. I'd sunk them all. And they still kept declaring war on me. One would think they'd be too afraid to try that when they don't have navies any more.

 

C) Blockades.

 

Something seems to have gone wrong here. I managed to destroy Great Britain via blockade. British Empire dissolved and was out of the game.

 

But I've kept France in a blockade from 1900-1930. Not only has France not fallen, but their economy is growing despite my having had them blockaded for 30 years. Italy and Austria-Hungary as well. Both of them have been blockaded for years at a time. Eventually their economic growth went negative. Then, like France. For no apparent reason, they went back to having positive economic growth. Despite my having all three of them blockaded for years at a time.  So my blockades and the massive fleet of super-advanced battleships I've built basically count for nothing now.  (All fleets set to Invade role)

 

D) Conquest.

 

I'm hoping some kind of conquest mechanic might show up eventually. I didn't just have Britain on her knees, I had her bent over. Then she dissolved and was out of the game. Now, realistically, trying to invade Britain while also fighting France would be difficult as it would take troops off that front-line. But it would still be nice if there were a means to take the homeland of the enemy versus them just becoming a dead-spot on the map.

 

E) Expanded Ports.

 

Before Britain died I took Ireland, and all of their holdings in the Med except Gibraltar away from them. Unfortunately these ports were useless for most of the game. I managed to get way out ahead of the AI in research. So when I took all these ports, they were all too small to serve as effective bases for my ships. Even a single battleship put them way over capacity.

 

Even many years later this was still a problem. While I understand that some areas just aren't suitable for large ports. Others could be. We really need a means to spend money on expanding the ports to make them more effective naval bases.

F)  Victory Points
There is an issue with Victory points.  As ships get more advanced, they are worth more VP.  This can become a problem if your tech runs off and leaves the enemy behind.
In one battle, I noticed that the enemy was gaining more VP for sinking my expendable destroyers, than I was for sinking his obsolete battleships.  This, is an issue considering that the battleship may be old.  But its still means the loss of a lot more men and materiel than a destroyer.  As it stands if your tech gains a serious advantage over the enemy, you can end up "losing" because he's killing expendable ships, all while you're killing his capital ships and getting less VP for it.
 

5) And lastly. Ship Designer

A) Scaling was bad. Scaling is bad. Scaling is going to continue to be bad if not fixed.

As it stands, ships get more limited as they get bigger. This makes sense for some things, but less so for others. This really came into sharp relief while I was refitting my ships.

 

I had battleships designed in 1919. In 1925 I refit them with the following. (100% research FTW)

 

Diesel Engines (was Turbo-Electric)

Semi-Auto Loaders. (was Enhanced)

Stereoscopic Rangefinders V (was IV)

Citadel IV (was I)

Radar-I (was none)

RDF (was Advanced)

Anti-Torp I (unchanged)

 

I had to sacrifice quite a bit of armor and expand the ship's draft to make this work.

 

Then I refit much older battleships that were literally half the tonnage. Gave them the same upgrades. Except this time after all those upgrades, I found I had room to add armor. Bear in mind the older/smaller battleship already had better torpedo protection.

 

As it stands, as ships become bigger they are able to do less than smaller ships.

Armor becomes an issue with larger vessels.  That's why All-Or-Nothing became a thing.  But there's a BIG difference between trying to armor every surface of a larger ship, versus installing a few systems in a specific part of the ship.

 

I've talked about this at length in other posts. So, since this post is already long, I'm not going to go too heavy on it here.

 

But...

 

A BATTLESHIP'S RADIOS SHOULD NOT WEIGH MORE THAN A FULLY-ARMED DESTROYER, 40 Tiger-tanks, or 70 B-17's AT MAX TAKEOFF.

 

The way certain components scale (All tower components, gun loaders, turrets, etc) is in serious need of an overhaul. This is why historic designs are not possible, and bigger ships actually end up having inferior capabilities in many respects than smaller ships. Thus defeating the purpose of increasing ship size in the first place.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Kane
Added section on Victory Points.

[SonicB]

+1 to everything on this list. The game mechanics especially, because it's so frustrating that UA:D is 95% there to being the perfect naval combat game and devs have shown no desire to fix these arcadey outliers.

The only thing I would add is that old bug of turrets and torpedoes failing to point towards a targeted enemy when your lighter ship (usually light cruiser or below) is turning. Or for a few seconds afterwards.

It's messed up so many torpedo runs when split-second timing the launch is critical. And for some reason the apologists on this forum seem to think it's a non-issue.

Anyway, great post.

[Kane]

3 hours ago, SonicB said:

+1 to everything on this list. The game mechanics especially, because it's so frustrating that UA:D is 95% there to being the perfect naval combat game and devs have shown no desire to fix these arcadey outliers.

The only thing I would add is that old bug of turrets and torpedoes failing to point towards a targeted enemy when your lighter ship (usually light cruiser or below) is turning. Or for a few seconds afterwards.

It's messed up so many torpedo runs when split-second timing the launch is critical. And for some reason the apologists on this forum seem to think it's a non-issue.

Anyway, great post.

And they're not going to fix them unless a large portion of the people playing speak up.  Those who are coming by and reading this thread, and otthers like it,  need to mark them up or comment, to make sure posts like this one stay visible and increase their odds of getting attention.

There are other issues in the game, and the devs seem to be more focused on adding features than fixing the broken ones. 

But its the open mouth that gets fed.  Players need to make an issue of these things or they won't get addressed.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Kane

[UnleashtheKraken]

Here's another +1 to everything on this list.  This game feels...spongy and unresponsive in a lot of ways.  Spongy in that although a player inputs commands, ships in battles may not respond well to them, even though the command and desired outcome is ENTIRELY WITHIN the realm of possibility.  Too much of this game feels out of control, and I personally want to MURDER my destroyer captains who fail to launch optimal torpedo strikes with aggressive launch orders, a perfect approach on the bow, the torpedo target manually set before the enemy was even in launch range, and the enemy currently shooting at something else.  I am utterly out of patience for this to be fixed.

I've also posted several bugs that have yet to see a patch list or get any dev notice.  I'm currently feeling that buying in to contribute to testing was a mistake.  My oldest report, of guns having uncanny 100% accuracy against ships that intercede on the firing line to a target ship, is getting toward a year old with no dev acknowledgement, despite several players reporting and confirming the issue in that thread.

I've currently taken a break from the game, albeit keeping up with forums and patch announcements.  I'll wait to the next major patch to see if the devs start listening to us that we DO NOT LIKE a lot of these decisions about tactics and when to launch and turrets not functioning.  At the very least if a turret is not firing/launching at a target in range and inside fire arc, I want to know WHY the damn thing is not responding to orders.

[Pratapon51]

+1. I agree with your points. Also, the armor nerf last hotfix is way overboard and also broke a few citadel mechanics.

[brucesim2003]

18 hours ago, Kane said:

And they're not going to fix them unless a large portion of the people playing speak up.  Those who are coming by and reading this thread, and otthers like it,  need to mark them up or comment, to make sure posts like this one stay visible and increase their odds of getting attention.

There are other issues in the game, and the devs seem to be more focused on adding features than fixing the broken ones. 

But its the open mouth that gets fed.  Players need to make an issue of these things or they won't get addressed.

Problem is, we (well at least I) tried to speak up. Got forum suspensions and ignored for doing so. So from my point of view, neither the game nor the company are worth investing any effort into whatsoever. This game provoked me to writing my only steam review (a negative one) in over 10 years of having steam.

If I'm ever asked by friends about this game, I give a 'steer clear'. Because the company punishes any who protest with anything more than a soggy paper bag, anything they produce has been removed from my wishlist. And I tell any who want my opinion that.

Edited July 29, 2022 by brucesim2003

[Kane]

10 hours ago, Pratapon51 said:

+1. I agree with your points. Also, the armor nerf last hotfix is way overboard and also broke a few citadel mechanics.

Yeah.  No kidding.  I squeezed some time in last night to play.  Went to refit my battleships (2nd time they'd have been refit) only to discover I couldn't do anything to them because they're now all grossly overweight.  Actually had some tonnage free beforehand that I'd left there in preparation for a radar upgrade.

Armor has been a consistent issue in this game.  Namely that it has been too weak vs. thickness, with the BS angling mechanics being used to cover that fact up.  Now we have this weird armor nerf that in many ways is attacking one of the core lures of the game.  That being to do "unrealistic" or outright insane designs if one fancies the notion.

[SonicB]

On 7/28/2022 at 10:58 PM, UnleashtheKraken said:

I personally want to MURDER my destroyer captains who fail to launch optimal torpedo strikes

Thank you for confirming this, because I'm tired of feeling gaslighted given how long this incredibly annoying bug has been around with no attempt to fix.

The communication about longer-term aims and goals from the devs has been utterly nonexistent (and no, 'upcoming patch notes' don't count.) So many hours and posts have been wasted by people who genuinely care about this game and want to improve it, repeating the same points and arguments because we hear nothing back. All it would take is "We hear you, we recognise this is a problem, and we intend to fix it further down the line."

For instance, I can't tell you how many times I've discussed with other pretty knowledgeable people here how to fix it so every gun of a certain calibre has the same targeting. Not a single acknowledgement from the devs that I saw in over two years until it was finally fixed in a recent patch. If they'd just said they were going to get round to it sometime a year or two ago that would have saved a lot of time and words.

[Kane]

4 hours ago, SonicB said:

Thank you for confirming this, because I'm tired of feeling gaslighted given how long this incredibly annoying bug has been around with no attempt to fix.

The communication about longer-term aims and goals from the devs has been utterly nonexistent (and no, 'upcoming patch notes' don't count.) So many hours and posts have been wasted by people who genuinely care about this game and want to improve it, repeating the same points and arguments because we hear nothing back. All it would take is "We hear you, we recognise this is a problem, and we intend to fix it further down the line."

For instance, I can't tell you how many times I've discussed with other pretty knowledgeable people here how to fix it so every gun of a certain calibre has the same targeting. Not a single acknowledgement from the devs that I saw in over two years until it was finally fixed in a recent patch. If they'd just said they were going to get round to it sometime a year or two ago that would have saved a lot of time and words.

Its not just you.  Though its worth mentioning that I have noticed some self-induced failures while playing.
Namely if you turn your torpedo launchers off so that the ship doesn't waste them at a bad firing angle, the launcher stops tracking the target.  Even if you manually shift-click to set the target.  Thus when you turn the launchers back on to fire, they have to take time to rotate into position, get their firing solution, and fire.

Its not 100% but I've learned to re-activate the launchers ahead of time so that they'll already be on target when that perfect firing angle comes.

Don't know if that's relevant to you or not, just figured I'd mention it.  It doesn't completely remove the issue, but it does seem to mitigate it.
I think this may tie in to a whole 'nother layer of bullshit on this sandwich.  I've noticed with some of my destroyers that it seems if the ship out-turns its turrets too rapidly, the turrets lose their targeting orders and won't engage the target again until you manually click.  I'm wondering of some of the torpedo issues people are having are related.

On a different note.  While I was originally put off by this change to armor.  Thinking about it, I'm actually slightly, slightly encouraged.  Armor has desperately needed a rework in this game, and perhaps they're finally looking at doing that.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Kane

[Pratapon51]

I do think some refining of gun pen and damage will be in order after the armor change, but they did just roll it back considerably for the last hotfix. My old BB is now only 1kt overweight and the super BB is within displacement, lulz.

[SonicB]

18 hours ago, Kane said:

Its not just you.  Though its worth mentioning that I have noticed some self-induced failures while playing.
Namely if you turn your torpedo launchers off so that the ship doesn't waste them at a bad firing angle, the launcher stops tracking the target.  Even if you manually shift-click to set the target.  Thus when you turn the launchers back on to fire, they have to take time to rotate into position, get their firing solution, and fire.

Its not 100% but I've learned to re-activate the launchers ahead of time so that they'll already be on target when that perfect firing angle comes.

Thanks - this is also very annoying. Even War On The Sea, for its flaws, allows you to order turrets to track without firing, or to start them turning ahead of a course change.

Unfortunately, the main issue is really that the damn things just won't turn while your ship is turning fast, or for several seconds thereafter. I've tried manually retargeting, and sometimes it works, mostly not. Usually just have to wait until the torpedo crew finishes their pints and gets back from the pub.

[Kane]

Update

Campaign now complete, 1890-1950.

Number-1

I had France blockaded from 1900-1950.  That is fifty years of blockade.  By 1920 I even resorted to save-scumming just make sure my government did not make peace.  So 50 years of near constant blockade, 30 years of truly constant, uninterrupted blockade.  France never collapsed.  Periodically their economic growth would go negative, it would continue going negative for a few months.  Then, it would miraculously rebound, and run back to positive.

How the hell does any nation maintain 15% economic growth while under blockade?


This needs serious work and immediate attention.  Yes, France is not an island like Britain, so it makes sense they could last longer against a blockade.  But 50 years of blockade should be enough to devastate anyone's economy, particularly that of a colonial power.

Number-2

Minus minor gaps of a month or two at a time because I forgot to start it anew (and there are no pop-up notices) I kept my shipyard expanding through the entire campaign.  By 1950 and campaign end, I was unable to build the 120,000 tons ships.  Shipyard expansion needs to be accelerated.

Also, explain to me how any of this is a "minor" victory?
 

Britain no longer exists, and I laid entire navies on the sea floor. Kept Italy and AH blockaded for a decade, and like France they enjoyed positive economic growth through most of it.

Number-3
Research as a whole needs to be accelerated.

Number-4
All points in original post still stand.  Fought numerous Sitzkrieg wars with AH and Italy because they declared war on me, despite no longer having navies.

Edit:  Not sure why war with France is listed as 1940-1950, that is nowhere near accurate.

Edit 2:  Also, obligatory BATTLESHIP RADIOS SHOULD NOT WEIGH MORE THAN ENTIRE BATTLE-READY DESTROYERS!!!

Edited August 4, 2022 by Kane

[Pratapon51]

I agree with the other points, but the victory outcomes seem to be limited to 'minor' because they are not fully implemented. I do admit it does look kind of funny, though.

[Kane]

1 hour ago, Pratapon51 said:

I agree with the other points, but the victory outcomes seem to be limited to 'minor' because they are not fully implemented. I do admit it does look kind of funny, though.

Could be, just very odd that destroying an entire nation would be implemented, but it being more than a minor victory is not.
Also just now noticing some other issues on my end results screen.  Namely that ship-kills is not accurate, considering I sank more BB's belonging to Austria-Hungary alone than what it is listing here for my total number of BB's sunk.  So, not quite sure what is going on there.

[21hugoPT]

@Kane I agree with you on the number 1 and number 2

The blockade mechanic is not very polish is still weird and confuse. Blockading a nation is easy, but then is not working as it should be.

The shipyard upgrade I 100% agree, I started my campaign at 1890 and I at November 1938 and my shipyard is at 95K with the upgrade of 99K at 76% and I upgrade to the max