With this year’s roadmap, gaijin has introduced a new game changing mechanic: separation of Battle Ratings for aircraft in Air battle modes and Ground battle modes, so aircraft would be balanced according to their capabilities in each game mode.
This mechanic would suit naval battles perfectly, as gaijin’s excuse for not increasing ships’ BRs is because of jets interfering in naval battles. So, the solution is pretty simple: increase all Jet BRs for 10.0 minimum for now in naval, allowing a naval BR decompression in all tiers, thus enhancing the gameplay.
Possible issues that might be brought by other people are queue times and low playerbase.
Well, naval is already pretty low on player count and the queue times are already very long, but this is mainly due to two things:
Gameplay issues and steep learning curve: Naval is harder to aim, requires skill and knowledge, which is acquired with time and practice. With current BR compression, the skill gap is even higher, with sometimes players being completely hopeless facing ships several times bigger and more armoured than theirs. Another issue is map design, which doesn’t allow for dinamic gameplay (like naval EC, where each ship class has a role) and ships with different classes are more likely compared to a prey and predator chain, instead.
Imbalance: As mentioned above, after getting a better knowledge and skill from destroyer gameplay, players unlock their cruisers and feel completely discourage on grinding due to the imbalance between battleships and cruisers, with the former class dominating the seas and not being threatened by other classes except theirs. This leads to lack of usage of cruisers, leading to less stats and therefore bad BR changing decisions, or even no track of how vehicles perform because players simply don’t have a reason to play such vessels. BR 6.0 and 6.3, where latter cruisers should be able to shine among their class, have absolutely no role except maybe anti air or anti AI.
This is a severe issue that should require more of the devs’ attention, and that could ressucitate naval forces in this game. I hope this was clear and I would love to hear more opinions on the matter.
Personally (specifically for the jet thing) I would say no aircraft above ~8.0. I would say 7.0 but that would leave out some planes like the R2Y2s and Banshees, but also it can’t go too high because then you start getting Sabres and MiG-15s and the like. Which, while fine, might be pushing it, and any higher invites the wrath of guided anti-ship missiles (that actually work).
Maybe 7.0 with a few hand-picked exceptions? No aircraft above that margin, at least for now?
Anyway, I feel like most of naval problems can boil down to map design. It’s very very bad for the realistic gamemode its trying to portray, and constantly running EC would be better IMO.
Great Idea. I would say leave ln the aircraft until 7.0, but when super battleships like the Bismarck get added, allow aircraft up to 8.0.
But there is another massive problem, which could be fixed when massively decompressing naval:
The coastal fleet compression. It is the worst in game. The coastal boats range from BR 1 until 4.3, and irs a complete mess. Especially around 2.7 to 3.7 there are boats you get matched with, that are completely superior to you, and miles ahead from each other, technilogy wise.
Another problem coastal has, is at 2.7 and above you begin seeing destroyers. And they just anihilate your shitty barge or slow as hell river patrol boat. And some destroyer players always drive into the capture point for the coastal boats, sit there, and send you to the shadow realm before you even get a single torpedo out.
This could be fixed if coastal gets its BR spread out, and blue water as well, with makeing the BR of the first destroyers that high, that they can only face the top of the line fregates and corvettes.
Honestly I agree. And, in my opinion at least applying a universal +3 BR to planes in naval (eg. a SB2C (a 3.3/3.7 ish plane) could be brought at 6.3 and above naval games, a Kikka(7.0) would need a 10.0+ naval game, etc) with the 1.0 stuff as-is would be good. This would also allow for decompressing of current naval to a 10.0 BR range, which would go a long way for balancing as well as allowing for future additions like the Iowas that have more advanced AA suits that could deal with jets better at higher BRs where jets are more common, but not so high that the planes completely outperform the ships without missile AA of their own.
Generally I think blanket system would probably take less work than a hand-made method, but thats just my opinion.
Only real issues in my opinion would be the restricting of air options in lower tier naval (up to 4.3 ish) but I think thats also fine, as earlier destroyers tend not to have much AA and I feel like being able to focus on other ships without worrying about planes would be better for progression anyways.
Addendum: with a system like this, I’d imagine things like the Iowas and the 1945 Yamato and similar ships with mega AA to be added at 11.0+ naval, allowing them to also fight early-some mid Cold War jet planes, but not being completely outmatched by something like a F-4 with a billion bombs
Addendum 2: this would also require planes to be spawned in flights of 3-4 per “player” as 1 plane just won’t cut it, and it’d be more realistic to boot. As well as more engaging for the plane player instead of just flying into a death trap.
I agree, and some of them are also too compressed to the point of even facing cruisers…
I believe this proposal opens many gates for the gamemode and hope gaijin notices it