For me, playing naval is more of slow play than action filled Ground arcade. Naval should be more about managing a ship and juggling repair, aiming and maneuvering all at the same time. Naval Blue water will never be action filled unless you’re in a slug fest with another BB at close range. Therefore making it easier makes essentially more boring. Players need agency. If you make choices, there should be rewards and consequences. This is why WT direction of naval is misguided.
Unfortunately, even if Gaijin finally realizes it made a mistake, someone will have to admit to this error and be berated in the company, and that is a very hard thing to do. Hence they will try to do the MSM thing and deny it’s a problem, say people like it, say it’s not that bad, stop talking about it and hope players give up on protesting, introduce an even better system (i.e. quietly revert the change).
Technically speaking, this is true, some players are happy with these changes. Every change will be supported by some players.
I remember when the devs lowered the number of assists in Ground battles (which reduced players score and RP/SL rewards), there were still players happy about this change, because according to them, the game is now “more realistic” with less assists. Don’t ask me how they came to that conclusion, I have never understood this. But they were literally happy that they will get now lower scores and less rewards in Ground battles!
When the devs removed rank 1 premium vehicles from the Battle Pass and replaced them with the premium time, the reason given was that some players didn’t like low rank premium vehicles anyway, so now everyone have something useful instead (10 days of the premium time). You can read this conversation here:
Spoiler
Unfortunately, I have not received an answer to the proposition in my last post. And of course we never got that low rank premium vehicle back in the BP.
I’m sure they used this argument just as an excuse. Less vehicles in the BP means less work for the devs. But the fact is that if they want to explain some change, the easiest way to do this is to tell that “some players” wanted this. They don’t have to lie, this is basically always true.
I’m sure that if the devs proposed to double the RP required to research vehicles in the game, even if 99.9% of players would disagree with it, there would be 0.1% of players wanting this change. Possibly because some players don’t have problems with money in real life, so with this change such players would get even bigger advantage over other players who have to account for every cent and can’t use their money in the game.
Basically, any change can be justified by saying “some players wanted it”. It seems that Gaijin is one of those companies that doesn’t want to admit their failures. They almost never revert changes they make, even if those changes are generally hated by the community.
Yea, I totally agree with you, they have never reverted a change and they will not start now but come on
, as experts what was the result of this battle?
Could it ever be any fighting chance given the new aim system?
At least before you would spawn and maybe, just maybe - now there is no reason to even pay the repairs cost.
It really sucks how bad naval is. From the sometimes 10 minute queue times to the fact you can basically be dead 30 seconds into a match you waited 10 minutes for. I really like big ships and i want to enjoy the admiral graf spee.
The fire spreading being such an uncounterable and massive threat has really turned the mode into a camp fest, especially at top tiers. Doubly so when coupled with the new arcade aiming system making it much easier to aim for the turret areas.
Despite the reduction in shell velocity that could have introduced more brawling or close range battles, we ended up with this due to fairly rushed or poorly thought out mechanic additions.
Here! Here! Give this person a cigar. They’ve identified the issue.
This is also why I had prefered coastal. Much more action in a smaller amount of time. The satisfaction of deftly manuvering lil’ plywood boats. Sending explosive “fish” at the bigger ones to keep them on their toes.
That is… all lost with these changes that really only serve the largest of ships. And by “serve” I mean, is least disruptive to gameplay, as they can soak damage far better than any PT boat could.
Yeah. This. It sucks to be wrong. Would be great to have a company culture that allows for change and exploration, as well as reversing course. Pride is the source of Pain for People and Nations, when people in positions of power succumb it it.
Troof. …that is… of course, unless the community organizes to review bomb the hell out of them on Steam.
…THEN they back peddle. Open up dialogue. Start communication. …for a lil’ while at least.
And it’s NICE when that happens.
It’s too bad we don’t seem to be able to keep a dialogue like that open. There is community here eager to share ideas, and let them know what they want. No need to guess.
[shrugs] just sharing fact, brah. I’m glad your daddy programs the game to make it easier for you. The adults here are trying to make changes for the rest of the community.
One thing I’ve learned during my first few days of get “5.3 lineup for everything” was that naval is surprisingly cheap (Mods.+grind) and that there are more than 5 players. Also you don’t need to wait 3 minutes like what most people think.
I agree with this, I really think it’s the key issue. The trouble is that simplifying and reducing the difficulty of a game to try and get or keep players is almost always a one-way ratchet. There’s no real way to make a game or game mode “more difficult” and succeed this late into its life.
The real core problems of WT naval are keeping game lengths of 15ish minutes and observing real-time physics. I think within those limitations they’ve done about as good as computers today permit.
Maybe that was their plan, to change the aiming system to something that wouldn’t really require any skill and then add iconic battleships.
Many new players should want to try Naval in War Thunder seeing battleships like Iowa, Bismarck, Yamato added to the game. Maybe the devs think that with simplified aiming system there is a much higher chance for new players to stay and enjoy Naval.
I have a different opinion, especially it’s easier to explode ammo racks nowadays. The reduced TTK after the last major update may be a source of huge frustration for new players.
Anyway, June will definitely be an interesting month in Naval. But it will be even more interesting to see what will happen later in 2025.
For me this strategy looks like “all or nothing”. If the next major update won’t bring a lot of new players that will continue playing Naval in the future, this could be pretty much the end of Naval. I don’t believe Gaijin will put a lot of resources into a game mode that is almost empty.
Helicopter battles are a good example of an abandoned game mode. We used to have helicopter PVP battles, but they weren’t popular enough to be developed (but really required many changes!), so this game mode was eventually removed.
We now have simple and boring helicopter PVE battles with many bugs and problems, but it’s PVE with poor rewards, so the devs don’t have to care. Of course, you can’t count on any significant changes in helicopter PVE battles these days.
The future of the Naval game mode may be the same if these iconic battleships fail to attract a large number of new players to stay. But I really admire the optimism of some players, especially if they saw Naval stats.
I get this but… there’s still a MONSTER GRIND to get to BBs and “enjoy” them. They’d need to grant instant access. [epiphany] Oh. Premiums. …ok but! …in a F2P model, most players aren’t paying. You’re relying on the Free players to pad games with fresh meat, and you aren’t going to do that if the waters aren’t fun to be in. The core game play has to be worth putting the hours into, or you won’t have players. Free OR paying.
I mean, it’s the SHIPS that cost the most to model. The bigger they get. They’re doubling down on the biggest baddies because they think that’s going to pull the WoWS fanbase but, there best core gameplay is at the coastal level. The level they’d originally planned to deploy. …ignoring larger ships.
It would really suck if we got stuck with THIS aim mechanic before they abandoned the mode.
I’m a chopper enthusiast. But you gotta play tanks if you want to play choppers. And you gotta be willing to suffer to learn. Heli’s are a lot of fun in Realistic Tanks. Especially 7.3 or 7.7. After that, the AA can mean no gameplay for you.
I just wish Gaijin would take the hint and abandon Big Ships. There isn’t enough there to make them fun. Never really was. Too slow to move and fire.
Why throw the baby out with the bath water? It’s obvious that changes could make Naval gameplay better, yes, even with big ships-- it’s just that Gaijin doesn’t make those changes. They can’t abandon the big ships if they’ve already made them, so why not suggest that they improve the game they made!
Why is it that every time someone talks about Naval, it’s always in the context of cutting back or abandoning vessels and modes, instead of fixing what’s there? This pessimism will never help the game be better. It will only make it worse.
[shrugs] The idea was IF. If we’re going to curb our enthusiasim on an aspect of Naval because it’s not “viable” for Gaijin, then I say, “Hey. Look at big ships. Pump your breaks on them. I’m sure it takes like 1000h to model one. Take it easy. Those guys don’t actually do much besides make really loud booms. Which is cool but… ya know… we’re looking for gameplay.”
Sure. There’s rooms for BBs. It’s just not what’s going to “save” Naval.
Currently, BB combat is Point. And. Click. You used to have to think at least a LITTLE bit. Now… there’s not much to do with those slow moving floating islands.
They spiced up the Big Ships with Float Planes. that was great. If not broken half the time. But that gave you an ability to take part in the match before small boats capped the points and won the game.
I mean, that’s what you’re going to get when you start ships that move 30kph 10 kilometers from a point.
Sure. Keep the BBs. But MOVE focus back to dynamic combat experiences.
Small boats has that with closer starting points, and a large variety of movement/armamnet. DD combat is still pretty fast and fun, while staying vulnerable to boats.
But above ALL… for the love of god… give us back the aiming! What’s there to even do if we’re not AIMING tactically? If we’re not pulling fun trickshots based on our understanding of the physics of the game? What’s the point of playing if we’re just… relying on the bot to do it all for us? If I can’t “Fire from the hip” because targeted and untargeted aiming is so radically different?
