Rambling About The Passive HE Meta For 18 Minutes - Ushakov 

I've said it HUNDREDS of time now, the players need a REALTIME system giving them their XP as they play.. Going closer to objectives +xp, taking shells while around other players - +xp, being targed by more then one ship +xp as you pplay, the game needs to tell you you're doing good and good for the team.. this is the only way the player base that doesn't read or learn anything, can learn.

The reality is that overmatch powercreep and DPM powercreep are what have killed the closer range engagements of the old days. As a German CA main I used to love finding those spots where I was too close to take out quickly, commit to the knife-fight brawl, and drag down a couple of battleships, maybe even a cruiser while I'm at it, and come out the other side alive because I was damned good at using my armour to its fullest. But the only reason I was able to do that in the past was because the biggest BB guns in the game aside from Yamato's 460s, were American 406s, Japanese 410s and Kurfurst's 420s. The highest HE DPM in the game was DM with it's 5 second-ish 203mm gun reload. But you could work around that. You could push to the side of the island that would force the DM to push out to keep shooting you, then clap it in the cheek with AP. As long as you kept zig zagging and angling, BBs would always end up hitting your belt rather than your nose, and most of their shells would bounce. The fact I could only go 32 knots wasn't a big deal because I had the tankiness to compensate. These days? With the average BB gun caliber being 457mm? With DDs that outgun me in a Hindenburg? With BBs like Incomparable, Thunderer, St. Vincent, Devastation and such, with enormous guns and alpha strike capability that are stealthier than my heavy cruiser? With so many spotting threats that trying to sneak into a strong position is virtually impossible? With submarines that can literally sail right under me, with hydro on, without me knowing? I'm dead if I get closer than 19km unless the flank is already won. I can't even risk starting an engagement nose in because I may never get the chance to disengage. I have to start any fight stern-in, so I'm ready to run. Nothing makes me happier than a game where the enemy BBs on my flank are Montanas or Kurfursts, because at least then I can do something more interesting than sit at max range and lob HE. I get to actually get close. Brawl, work my way into a position where I can put my AP to work and show them how scary Hindenburg can be. That's a 1-in-20-match occurrence on a good day ,these days.

Playing german and italian bbs are already stressing but also getting lit on fire constantly-what feel like a 100 times per game and immediately after dcp goes off plus subs,cvs, HE spammers,... great design from WG.

Honestly, one of the best videos. Being super honest, asking for change to make this game more enjoyable.

I think the main issue is BB's are countered by everything in the game. The only reason BB's exist right now is so people can get big damage on the top right of the screen. When you have DD's and cruisers with 1-2s reload time's and they are starting to pen BB's extremely easily having a 30s reload time and total crap dispersion all the time really doesn't fit the game anymore. I don't know where WG got this notion that because the gun's are big they suddenly have no ability to hit there target's. When you are spotted the entire game and island's aren't safe either then you just get burned to death by HE while you wait 30-40s for a reload that probably will get 1 pen at most anyways. There should be real fear that if your caught out in the open and a BB shoots at you then your toast. But nope most cruisers will bounce BB shells or you just flat out overpen them for next to 0 dmg. DD's are a waste of time since you only deal overpen damage to them anyways. But the 16 torps he launched at you from 5km away that you never saw are traveling 75 knots right into your huge hulking ass.

Defining WOWS experiences for cruiser players: 1. The enemy has all caps, we're 500 pts behind, and my entire team is in one corner and pinging me to "get back" 2. I'm in a short range CL, and 7 minutes into the game I still haven't fired my guns because there is no red ship within range 3. All the enemy BBs are firing HE at me and lighting 2 fires per salvo 4. I'm pushing in to finish off a low health red DD, we have a numerical advantage on our flank, and - I look around and every other friendly on my flank is sailing away from the enemy. 5. There are four DDs on the enemy team and any one of them can beat me in a straight up gun fight.

I think that even though they weren't in these games, a lot of the issue may be CVS, and, to a lesser extent, subs. I feel these classes are extremely effective at punishing players for being alone. Doesn't matter if they are spotted, or behind cover, how how good their AA is, it is simply death to have the audacity to go try to flank or push or create crossfire for your team, or even try to cap. I think this has led to a fear of pushing and conditioned players to never be the first in. You'll notice there's still Random Battles matches where one side will lemming push into the enemy spawn with 8 ships on one side... that's because the strength in numbers is enough to deal with some planes or a sub. Even when not present, I think the constant punishment from these classes has trained players through negative reinforcement to never position aggressively unless they have a huge numbers advantage. And the fact that this only promotes a long range farming playstyle means its now even more dangerous to push, like a feedback loop. That's my theory anyway.

I've stopped playing above t8 because of the meta. It's extremely frustrating, and boring, to hide at the back of the map the entire game. I now play t5-t8 where people push and brawl - it's fun. Carriers and subs are always an issue but mid tier they're not as strong and a good div can usually handle them.

Thanks!! I think you are articulating and showing the exact issue. T9-10 matches become almost schematic. The first one who moves dies. In addition citadelling has become unpredictable - even if a ship is exposed with broadside damage is pure rng. Through the recent T8 ranked season, I've regained some of the former brawling and active game experience back.

i picked up the game after a 6-8 month break where I played only a handful of games. I've noticed that I have experienced many random battles ending in a team getting to 0 points, which I feel like I never saw, maybe once, in my 5000 battles prior to my break.

I think its a combination of a number of things. HE is probably a little too effective right now, especially given its prevalence. Damage is rewarded SO much more than playing objectives; its really the best way to earn XP and coin. Concealment is also meaningless now with subs and CVs; its really difficult to disengage. Map design is a factor as well, as you mentioned. Maybe ships have become too accurate at range too? I dunno. Honestly I think the game has jumped the shark and we are all watching the beginning of the end, but that's just my opinion.

I've recently tried grinding up the schleiffen line. Tier 5 was very fun with brawls and full sends. Tier 6 was awful with every battle had 2 subs and 2 carriers. At that tier I very quickly learned that to try and push was death. Tier 7 has massively fewer subs and carriers but my behaviour hasn't changed back to being aggressive. If this is how players are trained in lower tiers no wonder higher tiers are becoming more passive

Maybe the main issue is in the range? T9 above ships have good enough accuracy and range to be able to throw shells from miles away, thus there's no need to pushing up. Longer range also allows you to crossfire even from other side of flank so you have more enemy ships that can focus you down. Current T8 ship's range are the sweet spot in my opinion.

thoughts: either cap maximum range period or increase dispersion based on flight time.

Lots of players seem to have heard the comment "You can't help you're team if you're dead" and took from that to never risk themselves. I've played a ton of games where players seemed to care more about staying alive to the end than winning.

Ive been noticing it also its gotten really bad the last 2 months and I have been trying to figure out a realistic way that wargaming could make players more aggressive that wouldnt change the game that they have. I do believe subs and cvs are the number 1 reason why players stop pushing with that said, spotting is what comes with subs and cvs (planes) which I believe is the biggest issue. 1 small but important and potentially game changing decision that wargaming could make is not having any planes except specifically spotting planes spot. So torpedo bombers, fighters, etc can spot the enemies for the cv player but nobody else. There are plenty if ships that have spotting planes, you still have Radar ships, subs onviously, etc that will still be spotting continually but at least you know if a squadran is coming for you its not going to be ann all out assault from every ship in the match if you are not in their detected range.

Completely agree with you, PQ. There are just so many ways to counter a ship trying to be aggressive. I am thinking about the classic aggressive battleship scenario...have to think about torps, HE spammers, planes from carriers (and hybrids), and subs that are so focused on your battleship. Your ship is also slower than cruisers, turns wider, have a detection rating as far as 12-15km away, and somehow no methodology to detect destroyers unless < 6km. By the time your ship detects incoming fire and torps, it's generally too late to take evasive actions. I think WG is alienating players with this kind of meta. I have many friends who played (some still playing of course) the game because of certain attraction to certain historical ships. I would say slightly more than half was interested because of famous battleships. But it didn't take long for some quit or slowly grow disenchanted because of this meta. You were on to something when you said most fun brawling...in big battleships! That's what players wanted to do, many since day one. I just hope WG listens and make the game more rewarding for being aggressive in any ship!

Another factor might be that "back then" you couldn't queue up right after you died again in the same ship, because your ship was still in battle. That has been fixed now. But i personally don't really want to play too many different ships. When i get a new one, i just want to play that for 20 games straight, no stupid downtime or waiting. So i played more passive, to be able to play longer with less pauses. I think that might be "hard baked-in" into older players minds too. idk tho.

The first thing is to get WG to admit that there is an issue. Then clearly define it and work towards a solution. I know that I used to play a lot more battleships and now I primarily play cruisers and destroyers.

I had a recent game where I did play the Ushakov where I charged in using some islands to do a bit of shielding, took out a Smolenks with a dev-strike, capped, chased half the enemy fleet away and then proceeded to last until the end. Funny thing was the enemy team didn't expect it and initially complained, but I replied with "I don't play the bigges tank in the game, with shitty guns to hide in the back" and in the end I earned some enemy compliments and +1s. We marginally lost I think, but still fun. As a BB player it is quite ironic that you get complains for both aggressive and passive play all the time I think.

I got a pause from the game in march this year and got back 2 weeks ago - still same meta but now games with 3 subs and 1 CVs (I don't know if you can get any more with so many subs already - if yes, it must be a nightmare). I find the same issues but augmented: HE farming, first to push-first to die, useless AAs, repair party overwhelmed by the amount of fires, floodings, and anti-ping. Wow, guess I will take another pause - let's see in one year time.

People are so risk averse that, despite not getting any bonuses for living through a match, try to stay alive to the point of griefing their team. It also doesn't help that a combo of plane spotting and the amount of overmatching just makes it not fun to push and have almost no room for error unless you are in a ship specifically designed for brawling (Soviet, German bbs).

I also found myself enjoying ranked a lot more, especially when it's a tier 10 season, than randoms and you've probably explained why. Do you think random battles are just too large? I think a lot of my enjoyment of ranked comes from the 6-on-6 format giving me more room to breathe. Randoms don't need to go that small but Concealed Maneuvers is 9v9 and that feels just right to me.

I feel like one way to help the meta not become so HE spam focused is to reduce all current HE shell pen values by 25%. That way if people want the ability to pen parts of a ship that they could before they’d need to take IFHE. It would be more upfront damage at the cost of nuking their fire chance by 75% when firing at a t10 ship. For those who don’t know, the reason a ship with extremely high fire chance can get hundreds of shell hits and only light a few fires per game is t10 ships have an innate 50% reduced chance to be lit on fire. So a 15% fire chance is effectively only 7.5% when shooting a t10 ship. So if that ship’s HE shells had 20mm of pen, their HE pen would go down to 15mm while staying at 15% fire chance. To get their 20mm of pen back, they would need to take IFHE and reduce their fire chance to only 5% when shooting a t10 hull. It’s not a perfect solution that will solve all problems the game is currently having with passive HE spam, but it will help a lot. The other changes I’d introduce to help with the passivity is to make CV spotting have a limited range like a cyclone, and to make it so unless subs are using their radar they will not be able to spot ships when they are not at least a periscope depth, as well as making it so sub sonar heavily increases the sub’s detectability to both surface ships and hydro consumables. Edit: also, for the love of god WG, give ships that have depth charges on their hulls the ability to launch them. I can’t tell you how many times I would have absolutely loved to bomb drop a shotgunning sub with ship launched and air deployed depth charges at the same time in my Moskva.

Reasons for this stalemate: Brawlers (e.g. German BBs) get nerfed to death Playerbase perception is that the whole meta has been created around the CV player who sits behind some rock and just farms damage all game The game score does not reward taking risks (even good ones). If you tank damage and lure players to chase you while your team takes the caps and wins the game ... you end up at the bottom of the scoreboard Fires just wear you down and if you damage con them, some submarine, CV bombers, or high dpm HE spammer will just wait it out and pepper you afterwards AA has been nerfed to death (really ... to death). CV has shorter distances to overcome to just repeatedly farm your HP pool CVs dont belong into this game, and neither do submarines. At least the way they are designed right now And last but not least: CVs drop spotter planes on their way over to the enemy team and if they run out, they are on their next run already to drop the next batch of spotters. You are CONSTANTLY spotted out. No surprise attacks, no tactics, no sneaky positioning to catch players off guard ... you are CONSTANTLY spotted. Its like the game has been changed to work for people who just want to spend money and completely shut off their brains after work and not think at all. Just watch the explosions and guns go off... Its sad. The game had gigantic potential...

Does that set up works for CW???

Nerf he or lower spotting for bb’s?

Back when this game came out after beta testing, it was hella fun. everyone engages in close range battles. Radars are not present yet, there's not much cv players at that time. I still remember when WeeGee said they wont put subs in game, its annoying to chase subs around and hydro doesnt do much other that spot torps and ships at a certain range, when its made to search for subs and incoming torps. I just wish those damned subs didnt exist in this game

One problem is that players who started playing since the cv reworks or god help them subs intro into randoms, learn early on that pushing in tends to get you farmed down fast. Pushing successfully is a higher skill cap than sitting back and trading long range fire. Good vid as usual

Multiple factors pushed game into such state and now that players arent willing to push won't help change that. 1. We have CV and subs - CV can perma spot us and our AA is kinda joke to deal with planes which pushes us back to stay with others. Subs - can shotgun ships or just be annoying at long range where counterplay basically does not exist (not to mention poor range or not even range to deal with subs). 2. Poor map desing - before we get to good position we basically lose most of HP in most cases because there is some islands at middle and point above - CV and subs will punish pushing really hard. 3. Then we have DD where we can get torpedo stop sign if we dare to push with sometimes absurd torpedo speed. 4. Too many players on really small maps especially on high tier - lower tier cannot crossfire from other side of map when we decide to push so engagements feel better. On top tier if we push everything expect DD can shot us from 18-23km range. If we lower player count this would bring game to be more tactical and favour pushing. 5. Gamemodes - if game does not reward in anyway pushing why players should? Cap? Can be taken later especially sinking enemy ships will give us more time. Temp buffs? Thats something but still usually DD's takes those as its perfectly safe for them so rest of the team doesnt feel need to push. 6. Poor balance and gamemechanics - we cannot repair our AA, secondaries or torp tubes during match if they broke (as they spawn with random HP so bad luck and your ship perform much worse than in other game even its still same ship). It would take lots of work to fix these issues only if WG will be willing to do anything. As we can see people still throw money at this company and this isn't argument that will change direction this game goes.

Good to see you back in CBs man

The game you used to have is still alive at T7 and T8. I'm still having an absolute blast at those tiers. As soon as t9 starts to pop up, the game starts to grind to a halt.

Here is my take at what could be done to improve gameplay, please let me know what you think: 1. Map Design: The maps are too open in most cases. By having more obstacles, lines of sight and lines of fire get broken up, not just allowing, but forcing players to approach under cover of the environment. a good example for this is the map where there is a sort of X-shaped center with 5 islands dominating the middle, and a more open 0 space surrounding them. There are some maps that kind of feature "forests" of islands, but those are often very small compared to the rest of the map (i think of the volcano map, the eastern part of it) 2. Penetration values and HE. It is too easy to hit things at long range, and then either you get ships that overmatch most things, or that just spam HE and deal damage regardless. HE Ammunition should be LESS precise at very long ranges, and AP should have less ships with improved pen values and angles. 3. Plane spotting and lack of functional AA. Getting spotted early or easily can ruin an entire game, and your AA is helpless against carriers, forcing you to cuddle up with your allies. I think it would help massively, if plane spotting would be reduced to the minimap, such as with the first 5 seconds of radar. In return, you could have a dedicated SCOUT aircraft on the new line of support carriers, which is unarmed (!), but has the real time spotting for everyone as we know it, and can drop fighter planes as normal. This way, the CV CAN still fill this role, but needs to trade off his own damage, which gives the enemy ships a bit more room to breathe. 4. Submarine torpedoes should have a cooldown between shots, like, 3 to 5 seconds between nations, to make it less easy to just shotgun an entire salvo at an enemy, particularly at close range. It does make a difference if you get targeted by 4 torpedoes at once, or within 15 seconds (assuming 5 second cooldown). Consider it the world of tanks intra-clip reload, or the pause during burst fire mode. It also gives more time to react should a sub try to shotgun you from 2 km. Alternatively, you may consider increasing the arming distance for torpedoes to 5 Km or something like that, to at least prevent shotgunning. 5. Player rewards. It is clear that time survived, and damage dealt are the crucial XP-and Credit generators in this game. I would like to see spotting, potential damage and possibly also factors such as "proximity to enemies" rewarded better or in the latter case, at all. There could be a new XP / credit category saying something like "time spent within 15 (CV) 10 (BBs), 7.5 (Cruiser) and 5 kilometers (DD) of en enemy, and if you need to name it, call it bravery. 6. Possibly new brawling focused achievements, for something like "sink 2 ships within 20 seconds, one of which on port, one of which on starboard". Something, that people would look at and think "wow, thats cool". People love their medals.

I think you can write off the good old days of close engagements in Ransoms and that they are not going to improve in any way. I think that because of them adding the convoy to randoms. It's their answer to the people wanting closer engagements and for them the problem is sorted.

We need spotting re-calibration. Now ships have 1. Concealment range (from how far away you are detected), and 2. Spotting range (how far you can see stuff). The 2 is almost never an issue, as you usually can see more than you can shoot; and it needs to be changed. I would suggest to make it impossible to shoot via lock-on if the enemy is beyond Spotting range and DRASTICALLY reduce spotting ranges for ships. You could see there is a spotted ship on a minimap (same as in fog, but not lock on) To look at potential effects let us assume Ushakov detection range is 10, spotting range is 12, max shooting range is 15 - dd spotted by CV at 14 km away - you do not shoot as it would be same as blindfire. if you can hit, you deserve the damage - an enemy BB pushing on the other flank (18 km away) - you cannot hit him - 2 cruisers brawling in central cap - you need to push up to at least 12 to get lock on and deal insane or devstrike the enemy cruiser Assume there is an HE spammer (Nevsky) with the following ranges: detection 12, Spotting 13, shooting 15. It can detect you and HE spam effectively only from 13 km away. from 14 km away it is blind fire (ineffcient). You in an ushakov need to get within 12 km to hurt him. These changes would result in more like 2v2 or 3v3 fights near caps and crosscap support would be less efficient (so you can maneuver and not get nuked by a bourgogne from 24 km away) These changes would mean that for a proper HE spam, you need to take an aggressive close range position which could be fun but can also be rather easily overwhelmed by a determined BB. Locked-on accuracy could be improved in all ships significantly (less RNG if you caught someone) Focus firing would still be powerful, but only 3-4 ships could take part in it; large HP pools would become more valuable. DDs would become more valuable due to ability to dictate range and more survivable due to less focus fire Potential problems: - scarier subs - lack of variety accross tech trees (sniper ships losing value) - scarier dds with high AP potential vs cruisers - even harsher punishment for mistakes (you smoked up within 10km of a BB in a Smolensk and radar was there....)

Maybe introduce a limit how fire damage scales? It's especially painful being a high hp BB as firedamge is percentage based damage..

I have been feeling the same way. Ranked is the last mode I go to these days. It's the most boring and frustrating of all modes. After a few matches I tend to just start YOLO-ing to make it interesting. I hope to God that War Gaming puts some incentives in the game for those that push past the midline and do damage.

Great points. Now I believe the only fix I can see just now, would be having constant Brawl battles and choose what teir you want. We also need Ranked battles with divisions.

Those Annapolis guns sound great!

What happened in the second game just came down to the design concept of destroyers. They have so much game influence due to their massive alpha, and ability to dictate the terms of all engagements by providing vision. This is unfortunately coupled with a very high skill floor and skill ceiling. The enemy team in your second game lost all four destroyers instantly, while your team lost none. From that point onward, the enemy team had no choice but to play the way they did - they were blind. Once battleships and open water cruisers lose their allied destroyers, they have no counterplay remaining against enemy destroyers. All they can do is run, as from that point forward the enemy destroyers will not be spotted for the rest of the game for any reason. Unfortunately, bad players are going to choose destroyers and play them. The only way to remedy this is to reduce both the skill floor and game influence of destroyers, by increasing their survivability while nerfing both their concealment and alpha damage. Spotting also needs to be removed from both carriers and submarines. Without doing this, the game will never change.

reduce the amount of fire and torp status by 1. Reduce Fire and Flooding HP tick by 10%~. EVERYONE gets +15% torp protection flat except for ships that has +50% torp protection..they get 7.5% increase. Reduce all torpedo damage from all ships except from CV by 10% Reduce all hybrid ships plane damage by 30% Hybrid planes can stay in the air for 30~45seconds depending on nation. Reduce BB/CA/CL overall range from guns (main guns) by 30% Reduce BB/CA/CL overall damage from guns (main and secondaries) by 20~30% Increase BB and BC max speed forward by 5~10% Decrease the time to reach max speed for all ships but DD by 10% Increase the time to reach max speed in reverse all ships but DD by 20% (if you know how aiming system works. You will know why this needs a nerf) Increase DD max 2~5% Max Speed Reduce Max reverse speed for DD by 5% Increase the time to reach max speed in reverse for DD by 15% Rudder shift time and Max Acel time for DD untouched. Increase BB and BC rudder shift time by 10~12% Remove the ability equip Steering gears modification 2 for BB/BC (if they can at all) reduce BB and BC turning radius by 8~12% Secondaries have reduce fire chance by 2% Reduce Radar range for everyone by 12~20% Hydro Detect ability for Sub will not be reduced. AA damage reduced by 20%~30% AA Range increased by 20% Reduce overall plane damage by ~20% Planes will have fuel gauge. 1~2 min% depending on nation. CV overall damage decreased by 20% CV can no longer do CIT damage. CV AP bombers have increase 33% damage CV will Have increase minimal side armor. 24mm~28mm~ CV will have increase minimal deck armor. 24mm~28mm~ CV will have Reduced Max Deck armor. 35mm~ Smoke related buff/nerf(mainly nerf): All Smoke radius increase by 10% Smoke duration decrease by 10%~12% Increase penalty detect by sea/air firing from smoke for all ships but BB by 10~20% BB/BC penalty reduced from firing in smoke by 10~15% All ships: When firing from smoke, there will be smoke plumage at the end of the barrel and a flash reflected off the water just under the end of the gun barrel. Overall ACC when shooting on non locked off ACC increased by ~8% Specific ships/line: German Secondaries has reduced bullet "arc" 20% German Secondaries has overall reduced accuracy by 10% Iwami/Kii/Shikashima (and any other JPN BB with good accuracy) overall accuracy reduced by 10% USA massa, Georgia, Ohio. Hs reduced bullet "arc" by 20% USS Massa, Georgia, Ohio has overall reduced accuracy by 10% Napoli secondaries has reduced range and overall accuracy by 10% Atlantico: secondaries range and overall ACC bye 8% Captain changes: Manual Secondary Battery Aiming: Reduce time to reach max efficiency from 45 seconds to 35 seconds Furious + Basic Suitability ability are now combined. Will now be called Intet the German Furious bonus can now triggered by flooding Furious reduce main batteries reload from -5 to -10% per fire and Flooding Furious now reduces secondaries reload Furious reduces secondaries reload by 5% per fire and flooding Furious reduces fire, flooding, module time from 15% to 30% Furious dispersion attack from enemies bonus reduce from 5% to 2.5% Furious can not be taken with Adrenaline Rush Furious can not be taken with Fire prevention Furious can not be taken with Concealment Expert Improve parties readiness increase bonus from .8 to 3% Super heavy AP shell penalty reduced from 25% to 12.5% Increase Super heavy AP bonus from 7.5% to 12% Focus Fire training now has "increase AA range by 10%" Replaces of survivbility with Hydro Banjo Acoustics(BB version) Hydro range for sub increase by 100% Attack planes (the one with depth charges) can now detect subs when the planes fly over the attack pattern for .5 seconds. Combine Fill the tubs with Hydro Drums Acoustics(DD version). DD can now detect sub with in 1KM of their ships. Hydro range for sub increase by 100% Reduce the time to reload torpedo by -12% Replace Enhanced torpedo Explosive charge With Hydro Cello Acoustics(CL version) CL/CA can now detect sub with in 1KM of their Ships, Hydro range for sub Increase by 100%, Attack planes can now detect subs when planes fly over the attack pattern for .5 seconds. Reduce main battery reload by 5% Reduce Torpedo Reload by 10% Vigilance now has +2% ACC bonus CL/CA specific captains" Eye in the sky: Now gets increase main battery ACC by 3%. Bonus increase to 5% when using spotter. Reduces spotter action time by 25% Fill the tubes now has +15% damage increase to torpedoes. +10% Torpedo speed Attack planes have reduced damage by 50% Depth charges damage reduced by 50% Sub HP increased by 20% Sub max forward and reverse speed increased by 10% Sub time to reach max speed in forward and in reverse by 10% I honestly don't play sub but I don't want to completely screw them over too. The closer range is an over all buff is a buff subs anyway. Potential damage EXP and credit increased by 15% for BB/CA/CL Spotting damage EXP and Credit increase by 10% for BB/CA/CL EXP penalties for BB/CA/CL dying in 2 min by -80% unless from devastating strike. for BB/CA/CL This is how I would balance it. IGN is Intet in NA

PQ, I totally agree but I think there's two wildly opposing sides to this. My wife and I play a few games together most nights and we play an aggressive combo (Napoli/Schlieffen). We have learned that we have to wait a few minutes to let people move up as they tend to just hang out in spawn and that usually works for us. However, what I see happening more often than not is an entire flank getting wiped out in the first 5min of the game. Last night we played 5 matches, 4 out of 5 of those were complete steamrolls as we watched our western/eastern flank get annihilated. My opinion is that the "battle now" button allowing you to just immediately queue with your ship has lead people to care less about staying alive or winning, they simply want to gain xp, win or lose so they yolo in, get a few hits and move on. Ranked has felt the same to me even into gold tier, but it is definitely more balanced than randoms. Love the videos, thanks!

do you think an across the board nerf to gun/torp/secondary ranges, and maybe reduced fire chance would be a good solution for this situation? cv spotting is probably also something that needs to change

I think it would be an interesting test, to incentivise more aggressive gameplay, if WG added a temporary mode called "Blitzkreig" and made it identical to random battles. The gimmick would be that the winning team gets a "bonus" to battle rewards if they finished under certain time limits. For example, 10% bonus to credits and exp if the team wins in the first 6 minutes. Drops to 5% at 6-9 minutes. 2.5% for 9-12 minutes. Then it's 0% if over 12 minutes.

What if fire damage (a status effect) was reduced? And/or it became easier to get full pens with AP so that players are incentivized to use AP more?

The fact is PQ if the Bourgogne had pushed in more centrally like you did with the Ushakov, had he been in your situation it could have easily been burned down before getting to island cover. The problem is HE spam is too effective and spammers just aren't as worried about BBs as they should be. When a full broadside cruiser gets caught by a bb at 12km and 9/10 times they get away with it unpunished. BBs need a buff

A HUGE part of the problem is subs and cv's. Cruisers and BB's can no longer push in and hold a key point next to an island, as you do in these matches. If you sit there for more than 2-3 minutes, a CV is going to smack a cruiser for 1/2 it's life, or sub just torp you and you're dead with 1 set of torps. Get so use to it, even in matches without subs/cv's, players just stay passive. Also, with cruisers being permaspotted by CV/Sub when sitting next to an island, there's multiple BB's in every match that can overmatch your bow, you're better off just kiting so you can dodge them.

I have honestly lost a game where s button was used at the start by most of the team and after 6 minutes we lost with remaining ships all being behind the spawn locations.. so much fun😢

you know what's more dangerous to push into than HE spamming? torps. If they want to encourage people to push in, give every BB (high tier) in the game hydro. It doesn't have to be as good as the German hydro, just enough to give players a sense of security when they do push in.

If i had to guess for the passive meta, is essentially, you get practically nothing for not having these “big damage numbers”. I’d rather make more income by spotting important ships, than doing damage to ships. It doesn’t make any sense to me that doing 100K to BBs makes more income than doing like 50K to like DDs.

It is not much of a mystery, It started with the smolensk and has snowballed from there. BB's are the playmakers and enable their team to move up and operate in a area around them, but a BB will not push up anymore with the sheer volume of HE spam from nimble or unpunishable "smolensk no armor best armor" ships.When you take the floating fortresses that provide a protected forward operational zone out of the picture all you have left is guerrilla warfare and long range bombardment tactics. Subs and CVs are a supreme annoyance but are counterable with a group moving together, a ship targeted for HE spam however will melt way faster than a non gato shotgun sub or cv can ever hope to do.

Man almost got a panic attack hearing that "THE SHIP IS ON FIRE" partway through the video.

>Takes brawling ship >Gets kited by passive ships, that are not made for pushing >Suprised pikachu face

I thought I was just remembering how the game was before when I started experiencing all the camping. I took a year or so off from playing and remembered so much more close up banging and came back and it's this now. So on one hand I'm glad it's not just been my poor luck but on the other a little disappointed this is how the game has swung since I was last a regular player.

I wish they had added a chance for night battles where there was more limited visibility. Let's say a 33% reduction to all detection ranges or something like that. Maybe with a minimum of 5 km.

Higher XP/silver rates when closer to objectives (capture points/convoy/airship/arms-race-pickups) perhaps? Might have to tweak some classes/ships income to balance it.

You have it spot on , hence brawling and ranked for me

I feel like you are spot on. I used to love brawling in my Kremlin....but it's not a terribly effective ship now a days.

My damage record is with Ushakov but secondaries Ushakov( 276k ) . İf you know how to push with him, it is really tanky ship.

i would have good solution. Only pen dmg could set fires. CV would spot only for ships nearby like when taifun is in map on 8km. but to 15km for example. subs should do dmg like this maybe but their torps you could heal same way as fires and something what some would hate.... overpens to citadel=stil citadel dmg just bit lower. i mean hole in engine is still hole in engine...

How about rewarding damage done in closer range with extra EXP? Like 10% for

if the fact that pushing in makes new players learn to stay back with their team, then a (maybe) good way to fix this in a "relatively " quick time would be to make cap points way more important. maybe two caps or so could win you a game relatively quick or smth? it gets cruisers and dds to know to contest for caps and when the whole team is pushing, CV and subs would be less of a problem because you have strength in numbers. just an idea. im grinding british dd rn and this passive playstyle makes it impossible for me to do my job.

the big bulk of players don't learn to adapt quickly, so they won't change their behavior for one game. being like "okay, sub dead, no cv, lets do nice stuff" is something that requires more than the rnd player you meet has

I WISH I would have had those on my team yesterday. I played 7 game with 6 losses (my worst day ever). I had a Montana decide to push hard into a cap controlled by a Shima, and died 😳. This was about the norm.

We really need maps to work the way Battle Royale games work like maps getting smaller and you take damage if you stay out. It was even done to some extent in one of those pirate events

I have an inverse reaction to the HE meta. I love getting in close, I love having tough fights, but I don't love getting melted alive. I need to actually live to kill things if I want to get my xp and go up the tech trees etc... If I play aggressive, I'm going to get punished, and my match will be over in a few minutes. I can't make progress like that. So I play passive not to farm damage or get the highest possible xp, but to just actually get play time.

I think it may have something to do with AP being really sucks too and maybe for some hard to use. PQ is also right, HE damage output is just insane, let alone a good player handling them. For battleships maybe it's boring because they rely on big alpha strikes but for smaller vessels, yeah they're liking it so much apparently because they can have good consistent damage and having 0 risk because they spam at longer ranges. It's just sad tho, i think getting 25k damage salvo from a Preussen fighting a GK is more rewarding for me than Moskva getting 200k damage burning down the entire techtree ships lol

Looked like a lot of different factors could have led to this experience in game 2. How many can we list? Moreover, It's quite interesting PQ that you're both acknowledging the annoyance of people using the passive style that is universally recognized as the correct way to play, while of course doing the same thing when you have the ship for it. It's an interesting situation; was hoping to hear some brainstorming solutions like decreasing fire duration on BBs or something.

I haven't played in a while so I can't give my opinion, but it made me look something up: naval artillery ranges (in yards) period close medium long 1880s 200 500 1,500 1890s 500 1,500 3,000 1900s 3,000 5,000 10,000 1910s 5,000 8,000 15,000 1920s 8,000 10,000 18,000 1930s 10,000 15,000 20,000 1940s 15,000 20,000 25,000 In case anyone else was curious.

simple solution. Any damage given UNDER a certain distance will be rewarded with a certain percentage more XP. Let's say anything under 15km would be 25% more XP and anything under 10km would be 50% more HP. Yeah, people can still get their massive damage from passive gameplay but the players that push are the ones that get the XP. If three different "distance tiers" is too complicated, then just make it so that any damage given sub 10KM would be 50% more XP. Anything more would be the current XP. There should NOT be any negative penalties because those who do make good long-distance shots, should not be penalized but if they want those high scores then they need to push. I think that would create better game play that is more enjoyable and less frustrating and honestly, it will shorten each match duration so people can move on to the next match more quickly, not counting those that die early... as they can always go to the next game more quickly. Edit: It would give players the option. Do they play for damage scores or XP scores? For newer players it would help them progress through tech tree lines faster and well, multiple other benefits. Edit2: Another thing that will help is the team lineups. Getting a CV, 5 DDs and 2 subs in a single match (especially if you're a BB or a CA without radar and/or hydro or no airstrike) .... is about as fun as sticking my dick in a food processor while it is on. I think they need to combine sub/CV/DD into a single line up and say 4 OR 5 max on each team.

dope video

Ok but how cool is the video title

I agrer... I love playing up close.. but if I play in Monte... Farm fest if I move up close... they sit there and do nothing.. its so boring. I just want to go head to head and have a slap fest. is that to hard??

i don't know all the scoring mechanics of the game, but over in tanks they have a higher XP/credits payoff for hits/damage under 300m. that way the players that move forward get rewarded more than the cowards that just sit in back to afraid to get their pixel tank shot at. maybe they could do that here too.

High Tier Games are genuinely torture at this point in especially BB's, all I get in my Yamato most games is getting plane-spotted 3 inches from spawn and then spammed with HE/AP and losing 80% of my health within like 50 seconds then harassed by the CV until it it finishes me off OR I get bumrushed by a Sub and eat tons of Torpedos I can't dodge barely outside of spawn. It's just become completely ridiculous.

The lack of pushing I'll attribute directly to submarines and only submarines. The spotting from CVs doesn't really matter when you're in a brawling BB because you'll be seen from the enemy spawn anyway, and CV strikes aren't that far off from having to fight an HE spamming BB anyway (with the exception of AP bombers, and the soviet bias CV). Meanwhile a submarine can pop up out of nowhere, literally never spotted before and dev strike you with undodgable torps from less than 2 km away. I play all the classes except subs with a main focus on BBs and a 54% WR solo with around 60k ish average damage, so i am above average in skill, and i have quite a lot of experience with the different iterations of this game, including RTS CVs. I have NEVER seen this before, at this scale, until subs were introduced. Even when there were CVs and a lot of HE spammer people tended to push in more aggressively than sit in the back, which is also why lots of games i played the last years were blowouts as people literally kept suicide charging.

As soon as you try doing some constructive manouvers (ie. sneak) there is a radar or sonar or planes or subs or the spotting bug(feature?). People arent pushing because they cant push. Sure, Flambass can probably push in an old cog but most of us would struggle honestly.

Also, map shape, all maps are short with islands on the horizontal line.

You ask where the brawling gameplay has gone? To the trailers and ads for wows

I’m newish player and I love to brawl. It is frustrating that no one ever pushes up with me. But I do it just about every game anyway.

There was an attempt. Few months ago we get ship re-enter change so no more waiting for coward teammates finished their game when you push in and die trying. But it might be too little too late to stop the downward spiral.

The skill that reduces heal cooldown based on potential damage needs a buff. Pushing should reward you with being able to heal up behind the first safe cover.

Fire resistance of a part of a ship should increase to a maximum the more fires get set on it. Or maybe fire damage taken could be decreased the more fires are set on that part of the ship.

Hot take: CVs and Subs don't deny pushes as much as people say. Subs can play hella aggressive and usually die (unless its Gato cuz that things insane) I AM NOT SAYING SUBS ARE NOT ANNOYING OR BROKEN. They screw up the pre planning of a push because they can just pop up. You know they're in the match but not WHERE they are. CVs you know cuz its planes of course. I actually think its the gimmick soup the game has become. WoWs used to be Rock, Paper, Scissors... Now its Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shotgun, Airstrike, Tactical Nuke, Space Lasers. Something like Jinan, while I love it is such a push denial ship. Or Gdansk which secures a cap for the team and now your team is out a DD, ruining your spotting/capping potential. On top of that the insane amount of DPM Ships that are in the game vs years ago. Think about it... What used to be at 15km+? Yama and Republique pretty much. maybe a Hindy/Henri? Now we have so many ships that can spot within 10-12 km cuz of radar, more DDs that can hydro/smoke camp etc. It used to be Shima was the torp scary denial boat, Gearing/Z52/Daring were the gunboats, Yueyang was an alternate Gearing with some different flexibility. Now we got micro cruiser Elbing and Harugumo filling the roll of a T10 light cruiser lmao. Don't even get me started on the Pocket Battleships basically making a new class without it actually being a new class in the MM. TBH I think players have been blaming CVs for most of this when they really aren't as broken as they used to be at denying pushes. A pre rework Hakuryu could straight up torp wall a push of 4 ships. Now that's basically only Nahkimov if they spam torp planes at you which can actually get flaked really quickly. Nak is OP in ranked cuz of the lack of ships in the match. PQ even said himself a game where there was no Sub/CV and people still played passive. Is it really the CVs at that point? Look I'm not saying its cope but its becoming a CV COPE fest when CVs aren't the whole issue here... Feel like I'm screaming into the void with this but I see so many WoWs CCs/Players just blaming CVs cuz its the easy way to vent. But it takes away from the whole picture.

The Ushakov should've gotten a defensive super-duper ability. Something like a big heal-over-time that also gives it immunity or reduction to Fire/Flooding damage.

It would help to get people to brawl is if CVs only spot for themselves and on the minimap. Otherwise anyone in a cruiser is toast when he is permaspotted by the CV

Pq. It is definitely cvs and subs but think the issue is that when you queue into randoms you just dont know what you are going to get. Thats why i was really really hoping they would not put things like arms race or airship escort into randoms. The beauty of these as seperate modes is I can spec a ship specifically for this and enjoy it, rather than being a complete hit or miss as to whether I get this mode playing randoms. I am guessing they are putting these into randoms to try to bump the number in the queue and maybe in the hope some of the brawling type ships are queued in there in the vain hope they will get the mode they want, but that is them overlooking/ignoring what the real issue is.

If BBs shan't punish or convert broadside citadels reliably (let alone plunging fire at range), they can't also not be tanky. Core gameplay is not crit DPS frags, it's direct fire on target (and open water play/vision & angle management). Subs (specifically cruiser/fleet ones) need to provide passive mini-map bearing updates as "move to engage/contact" and spotting cues for other classes, even at periscope & operating depth (slightly limited and tied to sound events, fire outgoing and on target incoming). 11:50 _You forgot to attach the Giga Chad image._

I think I’m very simple terms it’s about hoarding DMG, it all comes down to greed, people don’t care about winning or being prosperous to their team, it’s easy to justify anything when you have 200k dmg from HE without even trying, I myself am sometimes guilty of this not caring about anything else but seeing that number go up no matter what, but it sucks all the life out of the game that is so so complex and beautiful when you get those special occasions like brawls and close fights nail biting endings, I have played this game since 2015 and it’s been so long since I’ve had a battle where I was genuinely sitting there after dying thinking to myself, damn this man outsmarted me, he outplayed me, kudos to him he was the better player and I would take some of that lesson with me.

This is the way the game was headed years ago in the SEA server. The kiting meta is real. BBs with great long range accuracy are the norm while brawling is practically dead and nonexistent. With CVs in 19 out of 20 games, not having DefAA in SEA is asking to be mauled.

When people watch KOTS or highlights of set plays and positioning on how maps "should" be played by some very good clans out there. It just doesn't translate well into random play. Where no sense of teamwork or mechanism is used. I am quite certain that Bourgogne player felt he did his job during that match even though it was a losing effort. Well because that is what the top clans do. Kind of hard to inject a coordinated effort when really everyone is out for themselves or idea on how to play ship/map, and maybe hope for a win. I think what you are looking for is a shot caller, but in random mode. Something like Battlefield had back in the day I think was called Commander mode. Commander would issue directives from a God mode map view, and if followed by players they were rewarded and vice versa. It would take someone with a thick skin to be a commander given this community, but it could inject some sort of coordination and call to push from someone up above. But yes hard question to answer.

Funny story, Just got out of a game and stopped playing after we took all 3 caps. Than got rewarded with an L after being ahead 5 ships to being behind the rest of the way through was a tier 8-9 battle.

As a DD player, a lot of times stopped of playing PvP because of this.. I can't push a lot as a DD, I need at least a 1 Cruiser & a battleship as support to be able to keep fire away from me so I can penetrate their lines & scout in process and more.

I blame the missions. lot of them now require fire start and fire damage. fire has been since the beginning of the game, remember how Zao and Hindenburg are favorite ship to many players . then come the abominations Conqueror and so on.

I've honestly mostly just stopped playing high tier matches where the subs, cvs, superships, and other overturned tier 10 ships encourage this, and instead find myself really loving tier 7 to 8 where you CAN push and make plays without everyone on the enemy team having the range and ability to punish you. The lower overall ranges of the ships in these tiers forces people to push into at least mid range (except for the NC fan boi lobbing shells from spawn at a DD 27km away) it's honestly just a much more enjoyable experience these days than tier 9 [where you can now be bottom tier) and t10 where gimmicks abound.

I literally felt that. Had a convo with my clan mates recently and we all agree that this game is much different now thatn it was 5 years ago even. Almost not even fun anymore

1. CVs and subs. 2. If you are dead, you can't participate or help your team in anyway at all. 3. If you push, unless you are part of a group that pushes, you are farmed with HE until you die. 4. With the abundance of radar and hydro, even DDs can't usually, reliably, push anymore (again... HE farming when spotted). Good luck to anyone, including Wargaming, at this point in a fix the above. This is why I currently tell people "random battles teach players nothing on how to play clan battles."

THE Sep!

You have valid points in how the meta has gotten so passive but your viewpoint is as a BB player, you are missing 2/3 rds of the issue. For cruisers and imo one of the actual issues of the game is the increasing amount of 457mm overmatch, cruisers are getting afraid of sailing because an Ohio, a Kremlin, an Incomp, a R. Laura, a Preussen can just chunk almost half of your HP and there is no counter for that, no amount of angling will help you against overmatch, so people stick to safe to play cruisers behind islands instead of picking ships like Petro, Stalin, Hinden, because pushing in means an easy way into port. Then for DDs come more issues and you yourself pointed them out a couple weeks ago with the Gdansk videos, and it's the fact we keep getting more and more gunboats, now it's not only the cruisers with high DPM shooting at BBs, DDs too have DPMs closer to cruisers and it creates not only an issue to pushing BBs but also to DDs, having 3-4 DDs per game is not healthy, a DD gets spotted and rather than being a good duel between DDs it easily becomes one sided with the addition of stealthy gunboats and radar DDs, when a flank losses its DD early, pushing becomes impossible.

PQ please take some time, design a map you think would help fix this issue. Even if it's literally just ms paint and some brown dots for islands. I'm so curious to see what your ideal map would be!