French Coastal - the state it is in currently and what can be done to help

[T3ddy4]

With the Dance of dragons major update french coastal arrived, with 11 new tech tree vehicles, one GE premium, and one existing pack premium. I have played several of these vehicles, mainly the lower teir boats, and the pack premium, and so far the entire experience has been horrific. I have previously played several other nations coastal fleets, and this has been by far the worst of them all. The first 3 vehicles with twin 7.7 machine guns are downright unplayably bad, i have as many kills by ramming other ships right now as i do with the guns. The torpedoes are the only saving grace, and even then, the torpedoes are some of the worst on any coastal vessels, and you need to find people who are either sitting still or heading in a straight line. I would not be suprised if these vehicles are removed or moved so they are not the reserve vehicles and are unlocked after in the same way the french ground reserves were very soon, and i believe this would be the correct thing to do. On top of this, there is something pretty odd with the modification costs of these 3 vehicles.

I took these screenshots earlier, and the odd thing is that not only does the reserve vehicle have significantly higher modification costs overall, that 3890 figure doesnt include the modifications already researched by default. This makes no sense, and i wonder if it is a bug, but it makes the grind to spade this vehicle significantly harder than is nescesary. These vehicles are easily the worse costal vessels in the game, and the Rank1 premium that is there is in the same boat. These vessels are literally useless, and the main reason is that the guns simply do no damage. I have unloaded literally my entire ammo stowage, over 3000 rounds into a single reserve teir boat and not killed it.

So, what can be done? Firstly, i think these vehicles need to be moved from the first boats you research in the tree before the cbt is released to public, to somewhere else, they could be removed completely, or just made optional to research and moved above the 1.3 VTB-13 and the VTB-13 made the new reserve. There are many coastal boats that the french used from other nations, 2 are already in the tree in the form of the MTB-96 and the La Suprise(a British river class). There is also the Dutch navy that also used several coastal vessels that can be added. The minimum requirement for armament needs to be anything more powerful than a rifle caliber machine gun, because this is the real crux of the problem. This lower rank of the tree really needs to be looked at and needs some semi-usable vehicles adding, because right now the start of the tree is abysmal. In fact, it isnt just abysmal, it is unplayable.

What are peoples thoughts on this, and what are people’s thoughts on the other vehicles in the tree? So far the VLT-1 and VLT-2 have decent firepower, but die almost immediately upon taking any fire, and are at a very high br for what they are, so feel quite poor to play, though the VTB-13 and VTB-19 so far have felt decent to play. The MTB-96 and La Suprise are both decent vehicles, and have already proven to be good in the british tree, so no complaints for those 2. The Arras and L9059 I havent played yet, so I dont know how they will be, but when I get to them I will amend the post with thoughts.

[LtCol-RedFox]

G’day T3ddy4,

I’ve played through most of the tree so far & yeah I gotta agree the starter vessels are just hell before you get the VTB-13 which is a night & day difference an everyone I’ve run into agrees on that.

IMO, I believe the VTB-14 could be the reserve vessel as it feels like the only one that tanks any damage compared to VTB-8 & VTB-11, ntm at least it doesn’t have the horrible bloody mast in your face when you zoom in on VTB-8 (I feel like looking at the stern it could probably hold more torpedoes or depth charges/mines maybe)

VTB-9 is just a poxy clone not even adding any real difference besides the mast not being in your face somehow & the torpedoes stored in the stern.

TBH on all the 1.0’s I took to going head on with enemies an launching fish, then running ahead & ramming the enemies into the torpedoes for some of my kills as the 7.7’s just don’t cut it some times (at least the reload was reduced, just as I got out of 7.7 hell heh).

At least they’re all incredibly fast at 48kts heh, as are the torpedoes (although weak compared to the British Mk. VII or later Model 1919V).

VTB-19 is basically the VTB-13 but the 20 mm is up front & carries torpedo armament & a few Hotchkiss guns that melt your foes (like a Mod I’ve seen twice heh).

It’s annoying that the best stuff seems to be the FNFL equipment as supplied by Britain as seen by Vosper 2 MTB-96 (how is it four lewis guns makes it 0.3 higher???), Add in the only frigate is a River class Frigate (Why are they gunboats yet the derivative Tacoma class is a Frigate??) without 40 mm bofors, like where are the cold war vessels that I’ve read about & expected to be added so as to match everyone elses ships in battle???

But La Surprise is looking to be the main grinder at Rank IV but it’s still a weak River class at the end od the day & gets its bloody machinery knocked out in every hit.

The Aviso is definitely becoming a favourite amongst players as it gets a small craft spawn, it’s agile & speedy making it able to turn quite well (reversing is hell), the cannons are powerful in that SAP shells can cause hullbreak & the HA HAA is lacking but it’s accurate but the LAA is terrible (I’ve heard that one Arras class had a experimental dual 37 mm, I expect this maybe become a premium similar to the Gabbiano class corvette Folaga), Still I expect it to probably go to 3.3 some time soon even with the poor AA.

I kinda hope the Bougainville class Aviso gets added soonish as to be a good 3.7 ship & Le Corse class Frigates a 4.0 ship (would’ve expected that since its gun type were added in 2.37).

I’ve not played much with the LCI(M) L9059 but its 25pdrs are accurate & the LAA is modest an have already saved me a few times. (I wonder where the datamined British one went), This could be a 2.3 tbh.

I’ve not touched the VLT-1 yet nor surprisingly the VLT-2 even after getting it for the FNFL flag but I do think both should have lower BR’s VLT-1 for 3.0 maybe & VLT-2 for 3.3, That seems more reasonable than bloody 3.7 of all places.

I’ve just started researching La Combattante P730 an seeing the SS.11 proformance in test sail seems quite poor with them failing to sink the Type 1936A with four accurately aimed launches against the magazines but at least it can hullbreak the MTB’s, but it’s slow speed of 20kts leaves much to be desired (could honestly be a 3.7 imo).

Sidenote are those decoy launchers on the side? as I can’t seem to find if they’re the one written in most websites I’ve read or are they maybe rocket launchers as they look the part as you drop them in down the top feeders an onto the eight sets of rails.

Hopefully the tree gets expanded heavily next update & the BR’s of some ships go down.

E, Removed the before la as the is basically the in french instead of having the the combatant, also Brutain changed to Britain (although Brutain sounds catchy like a meme).

[_Poul]

@T3ddy4

I have previously played several other nations coastal fleets, and this has been by far the worst of them all. The first 3 vehicles with twin 7.7 machine guns are downright unplayably bad, i have as many kills by ramming other ships right now as i do with the guns.

I bet you played other nations before the devs nerfed small caliber guns in Naval a few years ago.

I had the same experience, I spaded all rank 1 boats many years ago, and they all were generally fine. But then the devs nerfed small caliber guns to reduce planes damage. I don’t know if you remember, but back in the days you could take a plane with e.g. 8 small caliber guns (like the Hurricane with 8 x 7.7 mm guns) and destroy wooden boats in 1-2 seconds. After the nerf this is impossible, and it was a good change, at least from this perspective.

The problem is, all guns were nerfed, including boat guns, and this change completely changed the balance of rank 1 boats. Try to play something like the Japanese Type T-1, and you will see the same problem as with French boats.

British BR 1.0 boats also have this problem, but they have at least more guns. This doesn’t change the fact they are still very bad and unbalanced.

I think this is the biggest problem of Naval in general. The devs keep changing the damage model in this game mode all the time, and they don’t react to consequences. It’s funny, but at least imo, Naval is much less balanced currently than 3-4 years ago.

Of course it’s not a big deal for rank 1 boats, as you can spade them very quickly. But what will new players think about it? I personally don’t recommend anyone to stay at rank 1, it’s a huge mess currently. But this is a consequence of many changes that were intended to solve one problem but created several additional ones. And no one reacted to these new problems, so we have what we have now.

The moment I saw that French rank 1 boats will use 2 x 7.7 mm guns, I knew they will be unplayable, even before the update was released. It’s a pity that the devs don’t know their game, they should have known that too.

[Arghail]

Haven’t yet tried the coastal tree yet, but I had a feeling this would end up like this. Truth is, there wasn’t much to go on for France at this BR anyway. These were the only MTB available at the time. Though, the VTB 14 with the Darne is absurd IMO. The ship had been conceived from the start with a heavier calibre in mind, most likely a 13.2mm, and it was ultimately never built (only the unfinished VTB 13 survived the war, hence the 20mm post war Oerlikon)

There are a couple possibilities that could vaguely benefit reserve tier for France, I’m thinking of the VT-1 from the 1920’s, a really old MTB with dreadful torpedoes, but it had at least one 12.7mm/13.2mm machinegun, which would up a bit the firepower. There’s also the VTB 23, a variant of the MGB 61 currently in the game with 4 torpedoes and further back turrets that were historically armed each with a pair of 7.7mm Darne you already know, but which should have gotten 13.2mm Hotchkiss machineguns ideally (if the war hadn’t started). If Gaijin’s willing, this would make a good entry tier boat… Thing is, it’s either that or British and US stuff.

For higher BR, there’s plenty of future possibilities to up the game a bit, most notably the Chasseur 5 sub chaser, which gained much armament during its FFNF service :

And a pletora of Rhine river and Indochina monitors that would be slow as hell but well armored and well armed.

As far as the Combattante is concerned, giving its historical SS12 missiles would already be a big enhancement over the SS11 currently in the game.

To be frank, I do believe Gaijin mostly used (if not mine), the same sources as I, and the more exotic stuff with harder sources, like the Sherman river boat and all that stuff, they’ve either overlooked or not found enough info on it.