Naval Forces re-work [Merging Coastal/Bluewater again | Separating Modern Vessels from the WW2 onces | Addressing the balance between Planes and Ships]

Suggestions MM/Eco/Prog
22

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.

1 Like
23

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.)

3 Likes
24

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.

2 Likes
25

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.

26

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

1 Like
27

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

1 Like
28

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.

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29

I want to be honest, I think there is a much better and much more effective way to restructure the tech tree. That is the rebuild it so that each ship type has its own progression line.

War thunder naval tree concept
War thunder naval tree concept1416×624 17.4 KB

The major advantage of the above posted structure is that it allows for fairly reliable integration of basically any vessel anywhere, and allows the economics side of the tech tree to be much better ironed out.

Should naval forces be moved to include newer vessels, such as missile destroyers, missile cruisers, or the likes of the Kirov battle cruiser and modernized Iowa class, this also creates a template that allows for such vessels to be integrated into the tech tree with comparatively minimal pain.

Now I will full admit that this structure is subject to some potential issues, I feel like its simplicity justifies investigating it.

30

+1. I support anything that brings destroyer escorts and frigates back into bluewater fleet lines.

The current setup of split coastal/bluewater tech trees is ridiculous. Some destroyer escorts at the end of coastal tech trees have worse anti-ship armament than reserve destroyers in the bluewater fleet (except for AA). To add insult to injury, you have to grind through +200,000 RP just to unlock them, and the module grind is pure pain.

Take the Chidori for an example of this nonsense. At 3.7 BR, it only has two 120mm guns, while Japanese reserve destroyers at 3.3 get one or two extra 120mm guns. Sure, the Chidori has better AA, but that doesn’t justify the higher BR and 200k+ RP grind when those 3.3 destroyers are objectively better at fighting enemy bluewater ships.

I hope any rework like this fixes this terrible game design and moves frigates and destroyer escorts to the bluewater fleet, where they truly belong.

31

Good start! This structure is definitely worth investigating and building upon.

One issue, important to keep in mind, unless Gaijin addresses this technical limitation, any tech tree is currently restricted to five lines maximum. That’s the main issue with this concept. The game cannot include more than five lines because of resolution constraints, and it seems Gaijin isn’t willing to implement a horizontal scroll bar for the players still using older, lower-resolution monitors.

32

I’m curious as to how you would see this working ingame. How are destroyers at Rank VIII going to deal with Battleships for example?

33

Yeah, honestly, that’s one of the most significant problems. Although at higher ranks, it probably won’t be too much of an issue with AShMs and/or stuff like the Tomahawk. Lower BRs are the problem. I’d hazard a guess that a Rank I Battleship will be a Pre-Dread or an Ironclad turret ship etc, but DDs at that Rank would probably be the 500 to 1000-ton Destroyers from Pre-WWI which isn’t a fun match up in game

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