Speaking of unintended consequences, can anyone confirm if the X+1 X+2 and X+3 modes work for them? I have noticed in battled that i cant ask my AI gunners to specifically target an enemy such as a plane. The keybinds still show in controls, but the crosshairs no longer show the target as locked in.
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I can confirm these commands no longer works
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Nope, they don’t work anymore.
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its obviously a skill issue ;-)
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I made a poll with multiple options:
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I believe most of these changes are intentional or at least obvious conclusions from changing the system. Giving torpedoes hydraulic shock damage will naturally make them stronger. Having the AI decide where to shoot will naturally make accuracy better, thus making it easier to hit boats and planes with bluewater guns. Better accuracy also means it’s easier to hit stuff at long range. However, the problems with the lead indicator and tracking radar being made irrelevant are obviously consequences that were not thought out, since the UI hasn’t been updated. As for the AI shooting across the map, I’m uncertain if it’s a bug or intentional.
However, I believe the lower time to kill IS intentional. Here’s what I wrote about the new flooding when it appeared on dev, and I think it’s applicable here:
Armor degradation, arbitrary crew placement, exposed magazines, removal of island cover on maps, cumulative hullbreak for coastals, cumulative hullbreak for battleships (canceled), this new flooding system. What do they all have in common? They lower TTK (time to kill). Bear with me here, but I believe these types of changes are a deliberate strategy by Gaijin spanning years in an effort to make ships sink more quickly, for whatever reason. I think the main effect they’re trying to achieve is to bring naval more in line with the rest of the game - that is, draw in more players. Naval is too slow for many ground and air players, and these players make them money.
Gaijin has also been known to greatly worry about queue times being too long for solo players, and having less players overall affects this. Thus, I believe they’re afraid of decompressing naval BRs for fear of spreading players too thin. If cruisers are able to sink battleships by flooding them, then it “justifies” having cruisers and battleships face each other. In a normal arcade-style game like WoWS or WTM, this effect is achieved by changing stats and abilities for different ship types. Since WT is supposed to be more or less “realistic,” they’re constrained in this regard. So, they control things the only way they know how: by chaning the healthbars behind the scenes and obfuscating them with things like the crew system and hull section HP. Ultimately, this appears to be a continuation of that strategy.
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With help of @RowanFW, added two additional items to the list:
- AI gunners can now automatically shoot the main guns on all the ships. This issue is limited to AB, and it stacks with the significant increase in accuracy mentioned above. ⚠ This is likely a bug, and any abuse will result in a ban. ⚠ Just a reminder: this was removed from the game many, many months ago to prevent AFK play.
- Camera shakes from nearby explosions despite the Camera Shake setting being set to zero (much like other issues, this appears to be limited to Arcade Battles).
Some added info for the first point
- The issue was discovered by Rowan on his saturday live stream
- AI gunners aim at the bridge (if the ammo rack is within the spread of the shell - it’s likely to get detonated. But on the other hand, it results in a huge number of overshoots on the ships the have bridge extra-high above the waterline)
- In Realistic Battles coastal ships always had AI gunners working with the primary weapons. This is not a new thing. And correctly, in the RB, AI gunners do not shoot the primary weapons of the bluewater ships. (As reported - in Arcade Battles AI gunners will shoot with primary guns of the bluewater ships benefiting from the Arcade-specific buff in accuracy)
- The difference in accuracy between RB and AB is staggering. Here is an example of AI gunners using primary weapon of the PT-59 (coastal) in test drive:
in RB, the first shot lands behind the boat, then the aim point slowly moves toward the center of mass (this is exactly as it used to be pre-patch. It picks an aim point somewhere behind or ahead of the boat, then moves toward the center of mass).
In Arcade Battles, the aim point is set perfectly on the bridge from the first round. As a result, it can even kill airplanes with the first bullet from the machine gun or autocannon (if the spread RNG blesses you).
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Great observation, guys. I tested it with a battleship, too. For some reason both the primary and secondary gunners are specifically out for the CO and aim for the bridge every time, even if they overshoot from trying to hit such a small target. This means the strategy of using the AI on your primary guns shouldn’t become attractive to botters.
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Coastal vessels with few large caliber guns like the japanese K-8 have had their troubles before, but now early high caliber guns, especially those slow firing single guns, have been massively devalued.
Hitting a maneuvering target has become a game of luck, and the effective range of those guns is somewhere around 500-700m. Beyond that range, any player with an agile boat will just dance around your shots (tested this myself vs a russian gunboat, worked like a charm).
Since it has become nigh impossible to account for the movement of your opponent, there seems to be little to do in order to counteract this, making some boats potentially unplayable.
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Such a shame, one of the things I actually liked about naval was the slower games. While I could have done without crawling to the point on large naval maps with my 20kph ferry boat, the idea that the battle is not decided by first shot but by who can consistently keep his fire on the opposing ship was a nice change of pace to paper airplanes and cardboard tanks.
I don’t think they’re weak. Play a battleship in top tier (let alone WW1 types) and if there’s more than 3 shimakazes camping at 15km away your team is basically done.
(Mostly for arcade, because of torpedo reload).
AI gunners can now automatically shoot the main guns on all the ships. This issue is limited to AB, and it stacks with the significant increase in accuracy mentioned above. ⚠ This is likely a bug, and any abuse will result in a ban. ⚠ Just a reminder: this was removed from the game many, many months ago to prevent AFK play.
Does AI targets also do this?