Hey captains, with Gaijin’s latest Sky Odyssey update, we finally got a new option for naval battles. Before, we could only choose Arcade or Realistic, but now we can pick EC mode.
However, there are definitely pros and cons, especially with how the game system works. Naval EC needs the whole team to contribute to complete objectives and actually win, plus it takes a pretty long time to make any progress.
Because of that, along with players leaving mid-match and causing major team imbalances, I’m running this poll to hear your thoughts on potential solutions.
Player Leaving Got Replaced By AI ( AI with nickname ).
dont do anythhing, keep like that.
0voters
Do you guys agree with poll option number 1? If not, that’s totally fine.
By following option number 1, at least naval EC matches would feel more alive, instead of a vacuum that ends up with just 2 to 5 players in very big map and so many objective.
There are a few problems in EC but they are solvable:
respawn block should start from the death of your ship, not from the respawn of the ships as it is now, to prevent players respawn on same ship just after they survived for 10 mins(which is not so long for naval battles), to force players play setups and use different vehicles not just the one best they had.
respawn block should block all respawn points not only the one you used before, to prevent player respawn same ship on nearest point and engage those who kill him with same ship.
There is a need of air based respawn and air based reload points for bombers - it’s no fun to fly 50 km just to reload, and it’s not fun to take off on a big bomber from the air field - now it’s just a waste of player time in the match.
Adjust number of players to start the mission up to 4 vs 4 or even 6 vs 6 and adjust time of joining in progress of other players to whole match(or until last half hour, to prevent instant game end when you just joined) to let people to join and leave when they want.(And don’t forget to replace player with bot if he leaves - atm. that player slot in the match is wasted and not replaced back)
Allow air players to queue and participate with just planes as additional players in the match above 32 naval players, engine can handle it we all know that and maps is big enough.
Fix the unkillable cargo ships of convoys, let them sink with 3 hull compartments destroyed as all other ships.
Fix the inability of targeting NPC ships(those bots who without names) over the ground obstacles, this is awful mechanic(or even bug), and costal turrets have the same issue(so some of them just untargetable).
Don’t allow players to spawn at point if it near to been captured, let say if enemy ships is in 3 km radius of capture point.
let people take 3.3- boats to battles, they are useful in those engagements against big boys.
And for dessert, enable “storm weather” and night/evening/early morning battles for variety of engagements to amuse players.
And naval EC will be fine and dandy as a regular mode for naval battles and players will gladly participate in it and love it.
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Could add to that:
Enlarge the rewards for completing of mission dynamic objectives(killing convoys, destroying carriers, capturing pots, bombing ground clashes etc.) - now they give you laughable of 10 RP and barely any silver considering that they require coordinated actions of multiple players but have reward less than enemy ship kill.
Rework the Denmark map, it’s empty, with awful routes and enormous distances where you forced to sail around the god damn island just to capture nearest point in 25-50 km away, so everyone just leaving it.
Lower ranks(3.3-4.3) with only HE rounds could not kill costal turrets so could not capture points considering that turrets kill player easily cause of big caliber.
Fix uneven teams where one could heave 6+ 8.7 and other 0-2.
Based on my experiences playing some of these deserted Naval EC matches, here are my thoughts:
the compartment-based damage model system and faux-HP crew count make torpedoes a lot more underwhelming than they should be in practice - flooding doesn’t happen quickly enough, nor is it lethal enough, and its too easy to pump the water out.
The Named Bots open fire at absurd distances with respect to all sizes of guns - they operate like they’re in Arcade Battles even when they aren’t and the mode is RB. The Un-named bots escorting convoys and protecting port cap zones are even more ludicrous in this regard. Since they appear to use a common set of parameters regardless of what mode they’re in, the bots need to be lobotomized and only open fire with main guns at surface targets roughly 6-8km away, and open fire with their AAA batteries less than 1.5km away, unless they are fired upon from someone else outside that.
The bots, named and un-named, behave like perfect hive minds. They automatically fire at seemingly whatever is closest and not what would be more sensible, which makes surprising them with the sorts of planes that actually revolutionized naval warfare quite difficult.
Disable AI control of all secondary, tertiary, and quaternary gun batteries. Naval EC maps are huge and largely sparse - if you cannot pay attention and maintain situational awareness, the game should not save you from getting tunnel-visioned.
The Coastal Artillery are literally indestructible by most low-BR DD guns, and they respawn so quickly that even bombing craft cannot kill them rapidly unless 2-3 players stop using ships to spawn planes simultaneously. This is a big risk given the archaic SP cost of planes as well as the overkill shooting distances of the AI-controlled ships. They need much weaker damage models and should NOT respawn under any automatic means. Instead, akin to how player tanks can drop ammo boxes or get crew replenishment, it should be a player’s job to sail into a cap and sit still there for a few minutes to fix the broken guns.
Remove the torpedo nets around cap zones and instead just block spawning at ports when enemy ships are close enough to them (say within 5km). Torpedoes are perhaps the only equalizer against the overkill named or unnamed bots firing from ranges well outside what normal players do, and to see them just go “poof” due to circumstances the mode no longer even has is just silly at this point.
Remove the SP cost wall on all aircraft. Under manual control shooting down planes is quite easy, especially with higher tier ships having radars to guide the guns and HE-VT to shoot planes easily.
Agree on the aforementioned changes to respawn blocks - after all isn’t the purpose of that to prevent one determined guy to defend against an entire enemy task force with a wall of his own dead bodies? Start the countdown from the player’s death and have it apply to just the respawn zone they previously had spawned at. But have it be instantly available to spawn at any other spawn zone.
Modify all existing naval maps so that coastal vessels actually have a purpose to go to places where bluewater ones can’t see them. Like sailing up river systems for example.
dont forget demark is unplayble since it take so longer than game duration for reaching every objective, i think denmarck EC should be remove till modern warship with long range capability arrive, there is no way BB play on maps like that, 1 Block is 20 KM/
I hate the new EC changes as a whole. No more battleships, cruisers, destroyers and frigates together. Now it’s the same battleships slop at higher br’s and a jumble of early cold wear ships with world war 2 ships at lower br’s. Naval EC used to be a tight-knit community … Now it’s just naval rb.
I see the player leaving issue as an extension of the new changes. It’s nothing that didn’t happen in naval ec before, but now there’s a perception because there are more players and more matches and said players come from game modes where ‘balance’ is more of an emphasis that Naval EC must be fixed.
I say replace leaving players with ai. The last bastion of naval enjoyment I got out of this game is gone.
Most other torpedoes usually knock out at least one to two sections or makes them super close to blacked out. 250kg bulkheads are inconsistent as is.
This has been stated time and again; no. This is such boneheaded stubbornness and it’s getting tiring. There isn’t one person on a ship. There’s between 100 to 3300ish men.
It was a stupid idea before when you brought it up in another thread, it’s a stupid idea in this thread. PT boats are borderline unkillable unless they lack a functioning brain stem or think getting within range of tertiary was a good idea to begin with.
And no PT boats nor planes use those, unfortunately.
A giant explosive of the size in most torpedoes should probably snap the AI Cargo Ships in half, alongside all destroyers, and seriously cripple the majority of cruisers unless they hit the bow.
Your personal opinion is that you need your childhood safety blanket bots running half your ship for you. Funny how folk claiming they love “skill” also defend the most skill-less mechanic in their game mode. Gaijin cannot make balanced AI anything, so it is better off removed in every possible situation.
It ain’t a stupid idea - it just requires you to actually pay attention to your surroundings, which you don’t want to have to go do.
It’s even more ridiculous for you to argue such when the ship you’re playing has a radar station giving you early warning of an approaching plane. But oh wait, that too requires paying attention to more than just the guy you’re in a gun duel with!
I will not budge on this. Mind you, I feel the same way about AI-controlled gunners on any sort of multi-person aircraft. Snail cannot make any form of truly balanced AI-controlled anything. Snail neutered bomber AI gunners to where people have to manually use them to get much out of them at all - so why is wanting the same for ships such a big problem? I even proposed giving ships without radars some form of aiming help in exchange for removing their childhood safety bot blankets, to empower people to go pick it up and use it themselves.
A game like this should have as little AI interference in combat as possible.
The question I have though, as I have not played Denmark in years so my memory is hazy - does the sheer size of the map enable faster DDs and cruisers to actually use that speed practically?
Interesting strawman but unlike you I can spot torps in the water at 20km and I have both poor eyesight and wear glasses.
Also nuked four planes in a match earlier with main gun vtf, which isn’t controlled by AI.
If you go within the 2 to 4km tertiary bubble with a bomber, it’s 100% your fault you get lit up. Even more so given bomber buffs have made them actually capable of face tanking even decent AA suites.
Similar to going within 4km of a ship in a PT boat. Especially with how fast those torps are on arcade.
Interesting that you pull the skill card when it’s known that you lack it.
I have no complaints whatsoever if its you manually aiming the guns, man. Good for you. But I find it highly irrational to defend AI-controlled anything in a game made by a company infamous for making AI either “Terminators” or “Vegetative State” with no middle ground.
Not so. I had my He-111H-6 obliterated by simple DD-level AI gunner flak before I was able to get into torpedo range. He was busy engaging someone else in an artillery duel. AI defended his stupidity - I object to cases like such. I was not “smoothly chipped away at until I eventually burned down” like the new bomber damage models have people do against fighters - I was near-instantly obliterated. Now I knew the new damage models were working because it took a Corsair a long time to kill me, during which I manually aimed and focused 7.92mm fire on his engine, lit him on fire, and killed him.
Also most aircraft-dropped torpedoes do not have ranges exceeding 4km, which is precisely the range at which medium AAA opens up under AI control. Most PT boats have ranges of at most 6km from what I can tell on their torpedoes.
Edit: upon double-checking apparently the Mk XV for Britain has 5.5km range, while the Swedish m/38 has 6km range (sadly Sweden has no navy yet).
What part of “AI controlled anything is a fundamentally anti-skill mechanic” do you not understand?
DDs in general have about 3km average distance where they open up - especially American.
Although iirc american DDs also get VTF in their tertiary loadout (I don’t remember, I don’t play american DDs all that often).
Edit
And what part of ‘it’s easily countered’ do you not understand? You’re literally the only one that I have seen complain about tertiary opening up on coastal and planes.
It does not properly track unless you’re both flying - or sailing in a straight line and not trying to evade.
Correct, American DDs with 5-inch guns or more get HE-VT. I’m not even talking about those. I’m talking about the secondaries of 20-45mm caliber mainly.
F5w torpedoes have at most 3km range. Those guns start shooting at 4km range - it literally is not possible to be within accurate dropping distance without them opening up.
I simply refuse to consider any level of strong AI-controlled anything “okay” in a game like this. Doesn’t matter whether its a ship/boat gunner, a bomber/attacker gunner, or the EC ground vehicle convoys with equally stupid SPAAG logic guarding those. AI should not be killing players really at all. I do not give a fuck if you think “it’s easily countered.” You cannot surprise an all-seeing bot. You have to fly straight for at least a few moments to aim CAS weaponry, and if torpedoes have max range within the AI gunner envelope, there is no way to use them against said all-seeing bots. I saw the attached video from Reddit you gave - in every case the person in question was using comically large bombs from above, not torpedoes even once. But alas, I see arguing with you as futile. Take your “skill” and shove it.
I know it’s easily countered. Because I see it happen in matches constantly. They’re a deterrent for stupid people making stupid decisions and any bomber with even a functioning brainstem can just dump bombs outside AA range and either cripple or outright kill a battleship with a single 500 to 1ker. This isn’t hyperbole, it’s a damn fact.
What video? I don’t use reddit nor have I linked any from reddit.
I’m not the one failing to adapt within the rules of the game here.
You yourself claim you’re highly-skilled at the game. You told me previously that “when you get nailed at long range by flak that’s almost always a player doing that,” and since you’re probably a lot more experienced at the mode than I am, you probably don’t even rely on nor even need AI gunners anyways.
Therefore I cannot figure out why you defend the mechanic so much. You cannot be simultaneously skilled enough to not need it to nail planes yet unskilled enough to need it to protect you. Either you don’t actually need it at all and just want to be lazy in your attention span or you are not as skilled as you claim you are. Which is it?
If you are as skilled at the mode as all your comments suggest, then removing AI gunners would not harm you in the slightest. You may have figured out how to deal with them after who knows how long of being frustrated with them shooting you down, but do you not see how the mechanic actively deters new players from investing in the game mode with the Combined Arms philosophy it’s sold to them on? Or are you operating on “I suffered through this, therefore so must everyone else!” instead? Again, which is it?
I mixed you and Kweedko up I think in this regard. One of his posts showed a guy posting a recent compilation of Naval CAS successes. But I noticed practically every instance was either 1) comically large bombs from very high up 2) near-vertical dives in dive bombers against ships with poor AAA defenses or 3) Tiny Tims lobbed at PT boats.
I did not see a single instance of a successful torpedo run without said user being shot down in the process by the AI gunners in said clip on any ship that possessed more than token AAA defenses. Every other ship in the clip that was killed either had terrible AAA defenses or the main guns were the only guns and thus always were under direct player control.
But you may be blinded by your years of experience to where you forget what being new to the mode is even like. To where you fail to recognize how the mechanic repels newer players to the point that they don’t even want to stick around and learn it. Hell in your own words just now “They’re a deterrent for stupid people” suggests this - weren’t we ALL “stupid people” at the various game modes we now play at one point or another? I know I sure was in Air RB and Ground RB. And I’m aware I have plenty to learn in Naval, but the AI gunners make me not want to bother because no amount of flying skill enables successful torpedo runs or even dive-bombing on the majority of ships that possess lots of AAA defenses. And if I with >11 years of experience in this game am struggling with it, I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who’s almost brand-new to the game trying to play Naval.
To put it bluntly - I cannot understand why a player as experienced as you would be so aggrieved if the AI gunners were removed, where any guns currently not under direct player control would simply stay pointed where they were when they were last under your control. I don’t like you, but I do want to understand you.
Neither; Just like there are people better than me at the game, there are also those less skilled at the game. Removing AI gunners only makes the game harder for lesser skilled players.
If you want to see how bad CAS can get with poor or non existent AA, I suggest playing 3.3 to 4.3 DDs. A bracket almost notorious for seal clubbing.
Yet the effectiveness of them currently also means it artificially penalizes the other side of the equation. To the point where the sorts of planes that did the majority of anti-ship bombing are borderline-suicidal to use the way they actually were.
Even the majority of low-BR DDs have at least some decent AAA guns. I can only think of a couple which are genuinely so terrible that they have none, almost all of which are reserves that people rapidly get past. Yes, CAS is reasonably effective there, but not to the point where I’d call it “seal clubbing.”
The goal is NOT to make it nonexistent. The goal is and always was “to punish not paying attention” no differently than any other vehicle class already does. And of course I was envisioning giving the vessels lacking radars a short-to-modest-range lead indicator as compensation for losing their automated defenses. Now the game would even in RB tell you where to aim them, but you must control, aim, and fire them yourself in exchange.
It definitely is. The lack of effective AA in the 3.3 to 4.3 bracket is abysmal. You only start really seeing useful AA at 4.7+ And it basically doesn’t exist for for most CBs and BBs until 6.7.
You’re literally removing the floor so the ceiling stays the same. Bomber gunners are also automatic or did you forget this?
Why? For what purpose would you lower the ceiling and remove the floor other than ‘because I can’t air torp a ship!’?
You also know torpedoes don’t arm when they hit the water but the instant they drop, right? Meaning you can just drop a torp onto a ship like a bomb in warthunder.
