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 every one 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.
