Go back to fun tiers…
There are none
It is what happens when the enemy has A-6Es in a match where no 2S6 is, a match where the F-14B exists bombing from orbit, a match where the one mirage bombs you from orbit, another where the jaguars bomb you from orbit, one where the Q-5L does it, or some in the 7.7 to 9.7 range where A-4s do it instead. So don’t tell someone they are lying about something when there are others to back up their claims.
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And now we can go back to the main discussion.
I really like Naval. Certainly needs an overhaul though.
I really enjoy coastal boats, but there comes a point (very quickly) where no one brings them out any more, so you have nothing to do but grab a cap or 2, then hide from Large ships or bail.
Only possible way I could think of making each class of vessel relevant inside the same game, is have the larger ships not available first spawn and require a certain amount of points (like planes in Ground RB). Ofcourse people would probably get upset that they cant just bring out their Prize Battleship or heavy cruiser straight away.
I also think that perhaps Bluewater AI gunners should have to be manually told to shoot at coastal fleet boats (focus target selection), to give coastals a chance at taking advantage of a players “tunnel” vision.
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With that mindset certainly.
Spawns: By far the largest issue are the spawns. Imagine being a new player to the blue water fleet and being unable to learn the controls because you are getting swarmed by shell in the first 5 secs of the match. There is no reason for spawns to be like this.
planes/aa: If anything, the aa is way to strong. The only way you can get close enough to attack a ship is if you get a map that has enough large islands to allow you to hide behind them until the last second.
Bots: It is not enough to ban the account. They have to ip ban them or some other way to ban the user themselves from simply making new accounts. On this point, is it possible to report the scripts if I find them on websites like github? I feel like they are not “technically” breaking githubs ToS but I got no idea.
Balance/gameplay: There needs to be a sizable rework of the mm and brs imo. Some ships, such as the prinz eugen, are effectively unsinkable for a large percentage of the ships they face. Not to mention the pain of having a stock destroyer and having to try to fight cruisers with your relatively low caliber HE rounds.
Overall, I have not enjoyed the naval game mode for a rather long time and I fully understand why it is such a dead game mode. The only reason I am playing it now is for the event. I remember being hyped for the introduction of naval to War Thunder and seeing it become the mess that it is really sucks. I feel like Gaijin is still stuck in the mindset that they need to implement naval the same way the other game modes are, a.k.a standard team deathmatch. I do not know the best way to have naval work but the team deathmatch version is clearly a dead end.
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Heh yeah, at the moment you can just win the match more or less by capping the two coastal caps then just go do something else. Part of that is what appears to be the current script bot’s programming to just come to a stop at some point and just mindlessly shell (which is actually awful for the player since you get singled out as the only-ish ship that actually pushes)
As for the idea of having to earn your way to the big ships, it’s one of the proposed implementations of that Battlegroup fan-gamemode mentioned above (here it is again) but I can see the issues people will have of not just starting with the destroyer/cruiser/battleship they worked so hard to earn. Honestly, as Shadow_CZ mentioned, perhaps the best way to have a combined class Naval match (which is very much not supported atm) is to offer different objectives for each vehicle class and a map to provide safe havens to prevent the big boys from just wiping out everything smaller than it.
As for the idea about coastal sneaking up on tunnel vision bluewater ships…on one hand, I thought it would be really funny, but at the same time it adds a lot of workload to the list of duties the player is supposed to manage at any given time (breach, fire, repair that just won’t end, steer the ship, fire the gun, keep an eye on torpedoes that warning literally won’t show you until the very last minute, avoid incoming shells if you can, etc.). The best way I usually get around this is if the player set their guns only on aircraft or something (which is entirely luck based) or has a rare teammate to draw their AA fire so I can sneak in with a torp or depth charge.
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Ah yes, I have learned to despise the Prinz Eugen lately. I can’t seem to reliably ammo detonate them as I seem to remember being able to in the past either. Sometimes a random shot I didn’t give much thought to one-shot them and other times intentionally landed a direct hit to where I thought the ammo would just damage the ammo elevator (not that I would reinforce the notion that ammo detonations should be super common, I did say I like the slower pace of the game). All the while they filled the sky with their deadly AP rounds that I can’t do anything about and die within 3 minutes.
Honestly, this feels like it applies to a lot of premium Naval stuff, Helena, Des Moines, Moffett, etc. Whatever happened to premiums being weaker than their tech tree counterpart?
Just got back into naval battles after a few years away. It’s workable in the main, though a bit of a mess in others. The stuff that is modelled seems pretty good.
The biggest thing missing for me in these sea battles is… The sea. There’s no reason not to charge around at flank all the time, unless you’re capturing a point. It’s basically a flat land battle with no cover. Destroyers weren’t very stable at speed, coastal craft out in the blue water your gunners would be lucky stay on their feet never mind to hit anything unless they had stabilised mounts.
The bigger the ship the more stable a firing platform it was. At full chat a DD would be bobbing up and down by several metres, depending upon the sea state. The RN cited their AAA at the centre of rotation for just this reason. With a decent swell small coastal craft would be hidden by the waves some of the time, though their seakeeping was very poor generally. Roll does seem to occur if you’re in a turn, though side on to the waves you should be rolling with the waves, good luck sniping anything at range.
Doesn’t seem as though this is modelled at all. Inshore waters relatively calm, coastal a bit choppy and the deep blue having a proper swell, ideally weather too, would make the game far more interesting and not just calibre / rof / armour based. Some ships with less armament = less topweight = better seakeeping. You don’t know whether it’s going to be a calm Pacific setting or North Atlantic in sea state 7…
Couldn’t NGFS targets also be added? Rather than just capturing a point having to influence a land battle, whilst no doubt being pelted by the other side’s tubs. So a biggish central island with small parts of it lighting up to simulate requests for fire support. Miss and you might be bringing firepower down on your own troops. Though as the state of the battle progresses to the enemy side of the island you’ll be vulnerable to coastal craft, shore batteries and have to get round the other side of the island to provide NGFS…
Just some ideas…
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I agree. The prinz Eugen is way too powerful for its br. Nothing like spawning in only to have at least one of them immediately focus on you. Just last match, I spawned in only to see 8 of them spawn within 8km of me. Needless to say that i didnt survive long.
They really need to add more large islands. The current meta is prinz eugens sitting out in the open and tearing apart everything while all other ships try to find the closest island to hide behind.
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Weather systems could be interesting in Naval for sure. Reduce visibility (makes me vaguely wish for night battles just to have an excuse for Gaijin to implement the searchlights so I can blind enemies, at the cost of being a highly visible target for the enemy), choppy waves reducing accuracy a bit for smaller ships (but not all the matches!), some kind of currents that makes you go faster in one direction and slower in the other so you have to plan for the most effective capping route…
This could be fun, although I feel like this would be cooler if it was done in a full-on combined arms game mode (heh, Battlegroup fanmode strikes again) in place of tank-requested artillery. Against typical naval matches, I don’t think that’d be particularly fun. Instead I think they just need to improve the Encounter merchant convoy AI to be more engaging.
The cap points should be much larger than they are currently. The sizes are fine for boats but once you get to ships, the caps are basically the same size as you ship. They could take a page out of WoWS 's book and have a very large cap point in the center of the map that helps to encourage players to not just sit along the edges while allowing for ships to cap without it being a suicide mission.
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I can’t even play using battleships without getting kicked out of the match by the servers. It makes me lose SL constantly.
I don´t mean to make spawns directly in line of sight from the other spawn. IMO the spawn should be “behind” islands and much much larger areas then they are currently and they should be directionally separated. So when the spawn is behind island there should be at very least 2 “spawns” facing different ends of the island.
I just think that placing for example cruiser spawns 30+ km eway isn´t really feasible. Not to mention the 60+ km for BBs.
Yep, especially for torpedoes and bombs.
Keep in mind that the suggestion was made way back in 2016 before even DDs were implemented and when I had no idea the true performance of BBs, DDs or CL/CAs. So I have made a lot of asumptions. But I still think that forcing direct controll for attacks is must since it would force direct fight between the CV player and the vessel player and IMO would greatly limit damage output of the CVs which is needed because we can´t have them as main damage dealer since only 3 nations really have them.
I have pondered the CV gameplay based on all new realities. And I came up with this:
New CV gameplay "suggestion"
The first thing that needs to be said is that for CVs to be implemented current gameplay/objectives should change since currently the game isn´t able to acomodate the CVs.
Another thing which must be considered is vehicle and nation balance so the CVs can not be too powerful and the loss of planes should have serious SL consequences.
Looking at the current in game mechanics and the gameplay contrains. I believe that best approach is to allow CV player comand limited amount of planes in several squads and then give the player ability to take control of one of the squads for attacks against the surface combatans. Since this approach would both limit the damage output and give player to prepare and perform several tasks and objectives simultaneously.
The gameplay would basically combaign both old and current WOWS style CV gameplay.
In battle the CV player would have acces to up to 3 different types of squads to which player could assign numbers of planes based on their preference in same way as with ammo for guns.
The CV would also have new “weapon control group” replacing the main battery with “aircaft command”. There they would have acces to launching the 3 different squads, command view and switching between squads.
The command view would be the main way how to command the plane squads.
Command view
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On the left, next to the the DM view is an overview of the state of the aircraft complement showing destroyed, rearming/repairing and ready for flight planes divided into the 3 types the player chose.
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Above the DM view is the deck/hangar overview. Which displays the progress of launching and landing of the squads. This action would take time based on the number of lifts, plane catapults the deck arresting gear and deck layout.
For example in case of the USS Saratoga used in the example she has only one elevator which will slow down the deploying of the planes to the deck / from the deck. But she has two aircraft catapults so the lanching will be quite fast.
And as all WW2 carriers she has straight flight deck so she can´t land and launch planes at the same time.
Squad launching view
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On the right is the squad overview which shows current number of squads in the air, the type of plane in the squad and its main armament and also current task and remaining fuel time.
It also highlights the selected squad and shows the actions which can be done with it.
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In the centre is the sommand map. Which would show locaition of each squad and the point where the squads is heading to and in case of the patrol also the area which the squad patrols.
To send squad to specific point on the map the player will choose the squad which they want to give command to with the cycle button [V] simmilarly to the cycling between the gunners. And then by clicking on the map with LMB to place pin on the map to wich the squad will now fly. Player can also decide to send the squad back to CV [Z & +/1], make it patrol the area around the pin [Z & ě/2] or to take direct control over the squad [ř].
The amount of planes and squad would be limited to only 5 squads with 5 planes per squad. This is done to limit the server impact and also to limit the disparity betweent he different CVs. And to make the controls easier.
In the direct control the the player would control only 1 plane from the squad while the other planes would fly after it / circle around.
Direct control
Dive bomber squad
Torpedo bomber squad.
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In the hotbar player has option for quick switch to “Comand view” and to “Ship control”
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There would be also button to switch between different planes in the squad simmilarly to the squad cycle. Next to it is dispay of the state of the other planes in the squad and if the plane still has the main weaponry.
After the player performs the attact with the plane they can switch to different plane in squad to perform the attack again. This is done to allow player to precisely place attecks and to limit the possible damage of completly RTS gameplay and if the AI planes would attack with the player. If the damage output and or the planes would be too easy to shoot down (even despite the distraction of other planes) the player can be given one ore more wingmen to perform the attack too.
The modification for CV would consist of two types.
- These would be new armament/plane modification which would allow the use new planes or new armament.
- These are more general amrmament upgrades which would improve the performance of the air arm.
Modification screen for the USS Saratoga
New armament/planes
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F6F-5 Hellcat and the TBF-1C Avenger these would allow to use new fighter planes / new torpedo bomber planes in the respective squads
The stock USS Saratoga would have acces to F4F-4 Wildcat, SBD-3 Dauntless and the TBD-1 Devastator
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There is also modification which allows to equip F6F-5 with Tiny Tim rockets as one of the squads (this isn´t replacement for the F6F-5 just another different squad)
Upgrades to the equipment
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Aircraft elevators would spead up the preparation/move of planes from the hangar and make the lift more resilient to damage
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The arresting gear would spead the landing procedures
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The combat air patrol would make fighter actively target enemy planes even without the patrol area command.
The landing/launch would be completly independent from the player, the launch would be animated just after the launch when the AI would take over. The laning would work in simmilar way where the AI would just fly into square right behind the carrier and rest would be amimated.
Both of these function are in the game but aren´t polished enough to be used in closeups on the CVs
Current AI landing
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Worth noting that weather systems don’t have to be universal. Out on the water rain squalls are quite localised hence could be used as cover. Tides and currents would make close manoeuvring inshore quite interesting. And as you say make the race in or out of cap zones more challenging. Even low cloud cover or completely overcast would add something, planes could pop out of it and climb back up to escape the AAA. Night or the battle advancing into dawn would add another aspect… Searchlights, radar and flashless powder could add something to the tech tree.
Having all three cap zones roughly equidistant seems like a wasted opportunity too. Reduces the effective use of mines, do we even have minesweepers in game?
Overall I think they have the vehicle models set up very well. It’s the environmental aspects and constraints that are needed to add some tactical spice. Otherwise it’s just bigger tanks with little or no terrain as cover.
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Are Prinz Eugens that bad? I find their crew gets thinned out very easily and quickly. Also I find my Italian and British 203 blap them pretty often.
I do like the Prinz Eugen, but I dont find I perform better than my other ships.
5.7 is such a great tier
South Hampton, London and Norfolk wrecks
Abruzzi, Trento and Zara wreck
Graf Spee and Eugen/Hippa wrecks
Americans and Russians wreck in general
I have Furutaka but havent really used yet.
Ah, fair enough! Yeah, placing an island to block the line of sight could be pretty good start of map design. Although I think that might have a slight issue of you being focus fired upon as you leave the cover though… Unless the exit itself is covered by another island chain. Either way, one problem that might come up would be that the map would end up feeling kinda same-y. Already a good amount of existing maps just feel like mirror for both sides for balance reason and that removes the gameplay possibilities a bit (although I guess this problem also exist for Air Battles so it’s not a unique problem)
I might need a more visual graphic to comprehend all that was raised but from the basic overview of things, I largely still agree with what is being discussed although to avoid retreading old points, I still think that the players shouldn’t have direct control over the plane squadron, despite the strengths you have raised. I feel like having players at the control would enhance the fighters more than nerf them. Perhaps to make things balanced from the RTS view is the idea that you won’t know what kind of ship you are attacking beyond their class. You might see a battleship but that could either be something bristling with AA like some American thing or just a dreadnought with like 2 MG mounts. As for the SL loss, I don’t know if it should be that heavy for losing the squadron but I think losing the carrier itself could be a bit costly (or at least higher than their like-BR’d counterparts).
They are deadly if they decide to focus on you, at least in my experience. I have the Aoba and the Furutaka at that BR and find myself destroying their armor but otherwise not dealing enough damage at range. And damaging their ammo elevator when I try to hit their front ammo racks. But other than that, 5.7 is a decent enough tier, although the recent BR change that sends battleships down there is…less than favorable.
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Well yes, But anyone of those ships I mentioned focusing you is deadly (with solid aim that is)
I really love my Italians for ammo wracking. really good for sharp shooting.
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