The problem that I see with the implementation of combined unit battles in Naval at its current state is that for the screening effect you have proposed to work as effectively as the real-life analogues, it would require extensive teamwork and cooperation that you simply will not experience in a War Thunder match. When we do witness teamwork, more often than not, it is driven by the player’s self-interest that happens to benefit the team. Why do we cap the point? It isn’t to deny enemy movements on that side of the map, we cap points because it stops/reverses the ticket bleed. Ground battle spawns SPAA not because they want to defend allies from CAS but because getting plane kills can be fun (or your SPAA happens to double as tank destroyers). In Naval, being a destroyer in the presence of a battleship just means that you will be next to die as some 305mm AP round soars across the map to utterly decimate your flanks (you can kind of experience this to an extent if you play a 6.0 Naval Arcade battle, where the bots often spawn in as destroyers and die within minutes). And even if there are carriers around to add the potent threat of aircraft, there is no difference for a destroyer player whether their AA suite shot down the planes in the protection of their battleship comrades or just protecting themselves in the middle of nowhere; meaning there’s no reason to stay in formation and possibly be an easy target.
Now, to compare this to World of Warships which implements a gameloop that includes all kinds of classes per match, it has the benefit of being much more arcadey in nature with the whole visibility mechanic that hide destroyers from view until it’s like a handful of kilometres out (more so with gimmicks like crew skill and camo and whatever else). That is to say, features that has no place in WT.
So ultimately we have to adopt the Gaijin’s interpretation where BR brackets are divided into ship classes; with the current problem being severe compression. And if there is ever a day where we can have cross-class Naval gameplay, it would probably be in the form of each class given their own objective to contribute to the match’s victory conditions.
As I’ve addressed extensively in my thread to discuss ways to improve Naval (shameless self-promotion, eheh), I honestly and truthfully don’t see how they can add submarines and get around its paradoxical strengths and trade-offs.
To put it simply, submarines are vulnerable against destroyers and sub-chasers which place them in a low BR for optimal balancing. But as WT is a game that allows you to bring a low BR vehicle in your high BR line up, this means you can bring that sub up to the battles among cruisers+ which often lack anti-submarine defense. This means the higher BR you go, the easier it is for you to use the sub; which culminates against you sneaking up upon and firing upon the virtually defenseless battleships.
All that being said, I know that WT Mobile got submarines there so I am genuinely curious on how they implemented the vehicle there.
I agree, submarines should be limited to a certain BR range, and also not be allow to be taken into higher BR games. I wanted to throw the idea of submarines out there, but ofcourse they require much more thought and work to be ready to be implemented ingame. And I’ll leave that for another suggestion.
I like some of your suggestions, but please do not buff aircraft, or nerf naval AA in naval modes.
One of the reasons I still play naval modes is because I can play relatively unmolested by CAS.
If CAS were made easier in this mode I do seriously think this would be to the detriment of naval.
I’m not a fan of Aircraft in ground or naval battles either. But in Naval RB aircraft really aren’t good without that Arcade mid air reload. So for realistic I think a slight buff for Aircraft wouldn’t be so bad.
Right now in Naval RB I feel like I never see any aircraft simply because aircraft stand no chance.
Everything is fine, but Gaijn won’t care about it, and won’t separate WW2 ships from modern ones, I’m sure of it, I’m waiting for such absurdities as Yamato will have, for example, Br 9.0 or higher, and will fight against MiG21 or F4, and its AA will be of no use able to do it, and such an F4 will drop bombs from several kilometers away, because of course Gaijn will not want to make new weapons for planes, in the mode with ships, because it is too big of a requirement, I really want to believe that they will change these models, they will separate the WW2 ships from modern and so on, but having played Tue almost from the beginning and seeing what this company is doing, the chances are zero, but always + for you for trying.
The problem is that ships from 1943 have proximity missiles with radar, so flying to the ship is suicide, it would be nice if flying over the water surface reduced AA accuracy by 60%, because flying to the ship with a torpedo is a feat that almost never happens. pretends, but it must not be the case that BB is killed by a single plane, because it is not true, and in the irl there were always a lot of these planes and often they did not manage to sink the ship anyway
Right now in Naval RB I feel like I never see any aircraft simply because aircraft stand no chance.
above 5.0, yes. Below that, it’s the opposite. There are a lot of reserve ships that have no AA whatsoever like the Litchfield or Mutsuki.
I really don’t want all modes to turn into Air RB+
so, i can see your logic here, and while it is good, this would ruin a couple things
first, people who enjoy coastal (like me) will just be shafted, because if you remember, rank 3+ is what you use for events. now people who enjoy playing coastal cannot grind out events and if they still do, they are forced to play cruisers and other large ships, this was the whole reason why coastal and bluewater were split in the first place. i know you want to combine it because you feel its better this way, but a majority of people will have the whole point of playing ruined for them.
second, as i previously said, there are people who enjoy coastal, and one of the main things about coastal
is you can have swifter games then battleships, maybe instead of combining coastal and bluewater, you just have the whole shared RP thing like with GRB and heli’s, but make it 2 way. then you can just split it into 2 matchmakers 1 for faster coastal matchs and 1 for longer bluewater matchs, but allow people to still keep coastal ships in their linups.
third, there was a suggestion that was created on the old forum that was talking about making BR’s depend on gamemode, and it was rather popular and even passed to devs (gamemode as in an aircraft like the buccaneer could be 8.7 in GRB while it could be 7.7 in ARB) this could make it vastly more balanced then simply trying to work with what gaijin is currently giving us.
fourth, you did not talk about the possibility of carriers, something that could actually be added in the near future, there are actual full scale damage models ingame as of writing this, but not on any AI carrier.
fifth, you could have also talked about adding more and better rewards for helping out, to encourage teamwork, like perhaps coastal ships helping give bluewater ships a faster repair, or perhaps a new mechanic of coastal ships giving new crew members to bluewater ships
I say yes to all, and could the Fairmile H LCS (L)(2) be a special instead of research, seems so slow and under powered only useful in Fiji map etc and be nice if Gun boat, torp boat would fall under same types to research.
id much rather have coastal more split from blue water. have coastal with more brs and only coastal maps.
then blue water would drop down to 1.0 br at the lowest instead of 3.0, allowing for more room as more advanced battleships get introduced without them having to face higher and higher br jets.
you could of course bring coastal and blue water together in one lineup, but it would be going in blue water matches, not coastal.
imo, its all upsides and no downsides vs this way or current and with little work needed to switch over.
Maybe the coastal be laid out as it is (with modern ships moved over to the Modern Ships matchmaker), and Bluewater placed below it? This would still allow late coastal games to go towards event/task grind. Yes, this would push the BR of Bluewater ships exceedingly high, but that’s why there’s the additional proposal to limit the BR of aircraft that can be going in with “normal” and “modern” Naval matches (as you mentioned below this as well).
Carriers as a specialty unit certainly makes this hard to consider, something I kinda see along with submarines. The way I see it (summerized here and suggestion proper here and here), it would operate kind of like drones in GRB, something you need spawnpoints to spawn in, with submarines for mid coastal/low bluewater, and carriers for mid-bluetwater and above. it will need to be balanced as needed.
This! And something id personally add, why not have very early naval ships (torpedo boat destroyers, protected cruisers etc) at rank 1 and 2 together woth the torpedo boats?
I’ll post here since it’s in a similar vein as something I was going to post as a suggestion. Also because what your proposing is exactly part of the issue we have still - it’s just merging a tech tree and all. And you write off battleships too fast - especially if you look at the various ships in game as is even beyond BB’s, at higher BR’s against modern aircraft and/or more modern missile ships. Because the last BB’s were retired in the 90’s, and they had had a bunch of modern upgrades by then. Your talking heavy metal behemoth’s that had at least 4 PHALANX turrets to shoot down missiles or aircraft, fixed positions of Stinger missile launchers, and launchers for RGM-84 Harpoon missiles. So given the current 70-80’s frames of the max tier aircraft (maybe even later) - they have options to be well equipped against any modern ship or plane of the time.
I do think Bluewater and Coastal should stay separated, someone wants to run PT boats against Bluewater - their choice to have fun with that. Plus they should have the options to complete events/missions in them - especially after the condensing of trees really screwed some things up taking certain planes down in rank (like the F6F hellcat that can’t complete things anymore).
I hate to say it, but the other game I left in this regard had the right idea - the various base types, Destroyer, Cruiser, and Battleship, really need their own trees. I’m sorry - Arizona has no business at 7.0 when it has at best maybe the refit right before she was sunk that wasn’t even enough for planes of it’s time, let alone 7.0 where it’s mostly jets, maybe high end props with insane payloads like the AD’s. Meanwhile opposite side their adding Roanoke where the highest actual cruiser is 6.0 which not only was this thing more jet age as it was, but will pretty much shred anything that has to fight it on it’s BR, let alone a lower BR plane if someone gets the short straw and their BR 5-ish lineup has to fight it. As is theres a ton of weirdness with more modern ships or more modern refits of them then to an older ship/refit with worse capabilities in fields - the most over the place being AA ability. The 1944-45 builds of Sumner/Gearing class ships are slightly behind in BR to Sommer and Porter Destroyer Leaders that have some .50 cal’s and a couple ‘Chicago Pianos’, and I believe have been mistakenly given AA ability with their main guns when those two classes specifically use a single purpose mount, unlike the Gearing/Sumner/others - at least until those two classes were given various modifications that reduced the number of guns and had varying numbers on how many were DP guns, and they aren’t the ones in game.
While there are some, like Mitscher, that are weird to place (the 2 gun armament is still pretty light, no heavier anti-ship weapons unless they change to the DDG conversion) the BR range should probably extend from around 3.0 to 8.0 (least in Arcade) with a current DD line starting with lets say Litch at 3, Aylwin at 3.3, the as is Porter/Somers classes at lets say 4 and 4.3 respectively (with the errant DP ability removed), Fletcher stays as is, with Sumner and Gearing bumping up to 5.0, maybe 5.3 (not 100% sure those versions should go much higher than that, though are argument can be made to put them closer to 6.0), but it gets kinda weird post war till you get to DDG’s because while yeah Mits has better penning rounds and RoF - 2 guns, no actual anti-ship torpedoes, still pretty limited AA ability is hard to put against some of the tougher cruisers/BB’s. Even if both lines start with Light Cruisers, there should be a light Cruiser line (that would end at Roanoke at 8.0 when added) and Heavy Cruisers line (likely ending with Alaska at 8.0) that can spread out through the BR’s with things like Trenton as a good baseline starter - though not sure if it should be 3.0 or maybe start a little higher. Battleships - me personally, I’d start the Dreadnought type/era BB’s at 3.0 - they’re mostly vulnerable to air attacks, big and slow, long reloads, not the most accurate guns - yeah tons of armour so my DD’s I’m relying on torpedoes or setting something on fire as I annoy it with basically peashooters, CL might get some pens depending besides relying on torps, but I’m okay with that. Especially since it also means more a reason to use the AP bombs they added on lower BR planes. Though at least on the US list, not sure I’d put any past 6.0 of those in game yet cause yeah, tons of AA but these are still more Dreagnought era or just after that got mainly AA upgrades, maybe some better fire control and all. Wouldn’t really put anything in the over 6 range till really eithers the late war refits of something like NC came in to the game, or later refits of the South Dakota’s, with the as built Iowa’s absolutely at the top end where they see Korea-era aircraft/jets with how much lead they can throw in the air and everything. With anything past 8.0 being one of the later refits of the Iowa’s where they also have more modern weapons/defenses to deal with more modern aircraft/warships/weapons.
But, that’s me, I’d rather see a mix of ships at the ranks/BR’s that are more appropriate to the ships time - be that as built or it’s refit/rebuild, where they aren’t bullied by way more advanced aircraft than they should be (a lot of the BB’s), or bully the aircraft that are that much older by comparison (several CL’s and even some DD’s) with more lead and shrapnel than the slower planes can hope to dodge, where you have DD’s/CL/CA/BB of an era interacting in the same battle, and having to know your types strengths and weaknesses vs others.
It appears to me that what you (and I) want is something more historically realistic.
So I would invite all of us the rethink with that objective in mind. And do not hesitate to propose something different from the current logic.
Myself, I would like to get rid of the ranks and have a research tree purely based on date of service. With subtrees for battleships, crusers, destroyers, submarines and small boats.
And you won’t to progress equally on all subtrees since there would be rank unlocking system.
So for example if you want only to play submarines you could just research them to the top.
Matchmaking would be also based on date of service so ship will only meet other ships that existed (or could have) in their era.
Of course high see vessels will not mix with coastal vessels are is the case in the real life (some ships may however belong to both classes)
Balance will be achieved by giving different spawn point costs in regard with efficiency in battle (BR).
(I also like the idea of bot planes with the player to be more realistic.)
Like land warfare research and development helicopters, ocean-going navies and coastal navies can develop each other. This can reduce the difficulty of development and make it less uncomfortable for players to play near-shore. It is a compromise solution.
I appreciate the work you put into your proposal and I agree that major changes must come to Naval, but I disagree fundamentally with your approach.
As others have already said in this discussion, all vessels should have a role to play at all BRs. If we assume the current division between vessel classes, then we can see that these roles can be held simultaneously:
- Coastal Vessels respond to threats quickly, ambush larger vessels entering coastal regions using stealth, perform minelaying and minesweeping tasks, and carry out anti-submarine warfare.
- Bluewater vessels engage targets at long range, have the survivability to contest areas while under fire, can conduct shore bombardment, and can screen against aircraft.
Each has different roles to play. The problem is that current Naval map/game mode design isn’t taking these roles into account and instead forces these vessels to fight against each other directly, where the superior firepower of Bluewater vessels almost always wins.
I agree that this would be cool, but it really doesn’t work with WT’s deathmatch game modes. This could really only work if standard naval is turned into something more along the lines of enduring confrontation. Everyone would have to be forced into smaller vessels at first, destroyers or just frigates as max initially even at higher BRs. As the game went on, larger ships could become available, but at higher spawn costs, so you would have to earn it over the course of the game and only spawn in a few large ships. Even with more constrained maps, there is no scenario where you can make a destroyer equal to a heavy cruiser without using WoWs-style arcade stuff that wouldn’t fit in WT. You just can’t get around the the fundamental difference between a 500 and a 10000 tonne ship unlike how a light tank and heavy tank with relevant ammunition can both face each other fairly
Honestly a way to fix that would allow destroyers (in higher BRs if its going by the current system) to respawn multiple times for free, to represent how there was like a billion of them compared to capital ships.
This would also encourage more reckless play with destroyers similar to how they were used in real life, at least in the famous naval battles. Being allowed a free respawn on a destroyer would let people get away with charging an enemy battle line fully knowing that will get them killed because they can respawn for free.
But doing the same thing in a cruiser or similar does not get the same free respawn because a cruiser is much more likely to survive such an encounter than a destroyer
I don’t think the proper comparison is light tank vs heavy tank, though. It’s more like bomber vs fighter or tank vs missile SPAA. Obviously in those matchups, there is a clear winner, bombers don’t stand a chance against fighters and most missile SPAA can’t really defend against tanks. But that’s not the point, they have different roles to fill. Yet both of those examples exist at the same BR in other modes.
In other modes, those vehicles have a chance (somewhat in terms of bombers depending on the BR lol) to fulfill their role. But Naval in its current form doesn’t allow this due to the bare-bones game mode design.