HMS Audacious Preview and Carrier Rework Impressions -World of Warships

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Today we are going to take a look at the HMS Audacious, the new Royal Navy Tier 10 CV. She’s pretty strong, pretty fun and just plain pretty. In addition to a preview of her, I’m going to cover the rework and my initial impressions of the carrier rework. Yes… it sucks to be a destroyer. But don’t despair. World of Warships needs to gather data before they can make fixes, and I am certain balance changes are incoming.

55 Comments:

  1. Bigs_Destroyer_of_Worlds

    “…And now you have to deal with airplanes on top of it?”

    Planes have always been a issue for DDs, but now you cant be perma spotted by empty bombers, only by a single, active squadron. Its actually easier for me to get around as a DD without being spotted, but what I do find is that planes hit me a lot more often as a DD, so its not a spotting issue now, its a damage issue from bombs and rockets.

    So +1 for not being spotted constantly by empty bombers/fighters, but -1 for rocket planes slapping 1/4 my hp off in a attack run.

    • Well I mean good CV players were crossdropping DDs in the RTS version. Bombs should be easy to dodge as DD, if you dodge and get hit they got really lucky with dispersion. Rockets are the main threat, they can be dodged and generally they will do chip damage to a DD but if they do get a perfect salvo on you it hurts.

    • I already see DDs saying, “To hell with it” and chasing CVs around the edge of the map instead of taking control points and helping the team, but they have no choice. They could have tweaked the RTS version of CVs, they could have made it more engaging and fair. It’s like stopping a leak by making a bigger hole somewhere else.

    • +Lawren Downing lolno they could not have improved the rts version without crippling plane spotting. This version is honestly a huge improvement. It used to only take one carrier to keep all the destroyers spotted.

    • +m0nkEz not only that, but we now finally have the opportunity of giving some appreciable parity between destroyers and CV squadrons by tweaking detectability for both units and perhaps adjusting outer-aura damage as necessary.

      The real solution is simply to make squadrons and DDs spot each other at approximately the same time, but make sure this happens at the outer aura of the destroyer’s AA coverage, so that CV squadrons are gradually diminishing if they are attempting to keep the DD spotted. But this should be balanced by allowing the CV to get off its attack runs, albeit at reduced strength, and return to the CV with at least half a squadron.

  2. In a year untill it is nomralised? Screw that, the game is just not fun to play and i count among the players that plays it for the fun or for pass time. I play mostly BB and CA, so if the game will suck i just stop playing and come back in a year to see if they fixed this gigantic clusterfuck.

    • +mickpass1
      first option definitly. rework sucks

    • I want to pause my premium time for a month or two. The game isn’t fun, its not balanced and they have completely fuck it up. I am happy to play for the purposes of solving the issues but I am not happy to burn through my premium time to do so.

    • +Allan Patterson
      Well in that case…u would want it active only when u r on…or only when i play. They won’t ever accept that unless it’s sold for an x amount of battles instead of time.

    • +cobrazax It could easily be done in the manner of “pause for x weeks”
      That way if you choose to pause and still play you cant just enable it again until the chose time is up.
      Its only really an issues at this time, when the game is going through such a big change that is very likely to make a lot of players play less.
      As it currently stands we are just paying to beta test.

    • +Allan Patterson
      Their interest is to make u pay and play as much as possible. They want premium to make u play, and want premium to always tick to make u play all the time, as well as make u pay more as its over sooner, even when u r not playing

  3. This is weird, because I’ve had the exact opposite experiences with the new mechanics. I’ve been having the best games of my life with my Roma, even when bottom tier and without any AA skills. My Amagi is AA built, admittedly, but the games have been really good with her too. My Khabarovsk has likewise had zero issues, even when both carriers were going at me, which they quickly decided not to do.

    And my carriers have been rewarding, but extremely difficult to play. AA fire has been brutally punishing of mistakes, even when top tier, requiring careful approaches and target choice in order to avoid being deplaned or worst of all, sat on by a Cleveland or Baltimore while they proceed to simultaneously shell your allies, use your hull as cover, and prevent you from launching any planes. If anything, between the power of AA and how many plane kills I’ve gotten in ships that aren’t supposed to have good anti-aircraft guns, AA might be a bit too strong right now as far as I can tell, though with skill it can be worked around somewhat. Plane conservation is a critically important skill, and very difficult.

    • Yeah its great that the new AA system gives ships that had garbage AA in the previous version a fighting chance against aircraft now.

    • You living in a dream land mate. Everyone getting splattered & your roman is the best ship!? Yeah of course m, wake up kid…

    • no wonder about your experiences, long and mid range AA is now pure rng – even ships like Musashi can now shotdown a huge amount of planes, as long as she get’s lucky, while AA shps like Worcester can have rounds with no planes shotdown at all…

    • If good stuff happened to Henry u cant just say hes lying
      I think the truth is the balance of CV vs each ship class is kinda different now and aa is pretty rng
      this can explain why everyone is getting their worst/best days in their lives

  4. Just give me the option to opt out of CV battles and I will be happy.

    • +CoreyYou may be correct there.

    • +Daniel Griego You haven’t made an actual point since the long wait time post so I’ll get on with my Friday until you do. If you’ve come up with something coherent by the time I get back or wake up tomorrow I’ll respond.

    • +Steve Haney I made my point, you choose to not listen and name call. Next your going to ask for my win rate 53.09%. So no point in telling you AGAIN. “Waaaa DDs are nerfed Waaaaaa!” This is what I hear from you.

    • +Beltenebros Only CV’s in co-op are on your side. Bots get BB’s to match those CV’s.

    • +Beltenebros Not on the bot side.

  5. every player with the capability of foresight that is based on skill and knowledge said, that this will happen. its in the nature of the new CVs and the high speed of the planes and unlimited recources of CVs. DDs are spotted to death! simple as that! but WG kept pushing out this crap…….denying all the voices raised beforehand. cruisers that depend on stealth have the same issue. its not only bound to DDs. specially as AA range of stealth cruisers is reduced to below spotting range! the planes can spot without danger to them! so its a cruiser nerf also……

    this whole rework makes the whole gameplay even more passive for all other classes! DDs not pushing? leads to cruisers not pushing, leads to BBs camp even more! exactly what this game needed…..lol

  6. “In a year, everything will be okay.”

    Alright, see you in a year then.

  7. The rework is amazing, it just needs balancing.
    – Chance to flood and set fire must be reduced.
    – AA must be rebalanced.

  8. The most alarming thing I’ve seen evolve in only one day is the use of the “F” key by CV players to avoid plane damage. They are going in for one strike and immediately hitting “F” and causing the planes to vanish in a blink. No more exposure to AA damage, and back on the CV they can instantly launch another squadron. This means the targetted ship pretty much loses the effectiveness of their AA build, and consumables like DefAA and Catapult fighters are wasted. Also, the CV’s teammates lose the spotting advantages the planes over the target area provide. I never saw this coming but it makes total sense . I would even say it’s somewhat stupid for CV’s to ignore using this mechanic. As a team-centric player who enjoys fair play I am less likely to play CV’s now. It’s a frustrating element for both sides and will only fuel the rampant CV-hate we see. I hope it will be removed soon and I also agree the universal spotting issue needs to be looked at. You are right to say this is a WIP and people need to take a breath and let the issues be resolved. However, it’s a shame WG didn’t increase the incentives to play on the PTS in a variety of ships to get this important rework better tested. Testing this rework on the live server is a display of hubris and the claim they didn’t have any other options is insulting for the loyal player base who never signed on to be guinea pigs for this venture. So yes, let’s wait and see but WG needs to keep in mind that continuing loyalty is an aspect worth striving for. Loyalty is a two-way street.
    Das Bat

    • +Wes Parker I don’t know, I’d rather wait to see if I can get a second or third attack off instead of immediately going back, what’s the point of having a perfectly healthy plane go back when you can do more damage with it. Even if I could only get 2 out of three runs off before being forced to return to the CV to avoid losing the planes that’s still 5-15k damage (depending on tier and or planes) unless you KNOW that you can’t make a second run it seems like a waste of damage and spotting for your team .

    • +Colm Corbec Actually, after I posted I found that iChase has put out a video describing the “magic F-key” as a great strategy. In reply to comments I made there I was told that Octavian is aware of this exploitation of a game mechanic and is pissed. WG intends to nerf it asap.

    • +Sinboto Simmons I wasn’t repeating you, what i meant is that case you decide to hit the F key, it’s so fast to get back in the same place that it makes it ridiculous.. I think it’s just too much.. It doens’t even feel like it belongs in the same game. You can’t “relocate” any AA ship, to try to help someone. WG in their “infinite wisdom” says the idea is that the team must stay together. This is a big joke. First nobody plays as a team in randoms, especially since the cancer radar was introduced. Now asking for the dam team to work together because of 1 or 2 players? How stupid is that? The most important thing in the game right now is changing sectors and looking at the sky?
      I had a battle with Atlanta (iwill be a refund since AA is almost as bad as a dam DD) and with a lot of effort, vs 2 completely noob CVs i got 19 planes. The funny part and at the same time ridicule, is that i was changing sectors, maneuvering, i was broadside to like 6 enemy ships but none of them fired at me… why? They were all dodging and changing sectors as well and i ended up LAST, trying to play as a “team player”. This kind of stuff ruins the battle.
      The 2 most important things you do now in a battle are:
      If you are a CV, there’s no real battle “tactic”, just “tactics” to hit ships.
      If you are on any other ship the game becomes the “Change Sector Simulator”
      I’m not even playing random, just ranked or coop. The game is a complete joke now.
      The sad part is that, even if WG is lying about it, saying it’s not true, we all know that this rework is meant to make CVs “console friendly. They were never thinking of “balancing” anything. Before, CVs were not balanced, now EVERY SINGLE SHIP in the game is unbalanced. What’s the point?

    • Just tested F key technique with Kaga and Shokaku
      With aggressive CV positioning I can get back into the fight quite fast
      I instantly doubled my dmg output because I preserved so many planes
      I mean even in Kaga where the planes have t6 hp, vs t8 AA I lost only 13 planes the entire game bombing the shet out of ppl (partly due to 2 BBs decided to play alone in the open)
      Shokaku vs t9 i only really started having problems with my TB squad size towards the end of the game

      Whereas when I tried to turn back for 2nd run, if the enemy ship remotely has any AA im most likely going to lose my whole squad, which is really too much for me, it could completely cripple my squads and I wont be able to do anything significant for the rest of the game

      Though even with this technique, I’d say it only made me on par with other ships of the same tier that has carry power
      I dont think dealing 100-150k dmg against ships of the same tier automatically makes me op, and i dont really get that kind of dmg in every game
      If enemies play smart and group up, I can do something but i cant cripple them

      For t10 idk, maybe my planes would be strong enough I no longer really lose them and have a much bigger impact

      All in all it kinda negates AA build/consumable uses which is a bad thing, but if I dont do it, it gets frustrating for me to play, so this is an issue with the design

    • I think I can trust WG to balance this out and they really have put in a lot of effort on this

  9. hehe Tier 8…been saying for a year they just need to switch to +/-1. Tiers 6-8 usually get up tiered and hammered far too often. It really should not be too difficult to give the first minute to +/-1 match maker and then open it up to +/-2 so people aren’t sitting for 2-4 minutes waiting for matches. Otherwise have a player toggle where we can choose to wait on +/-1 or jump in on +/- 2 normal MM. As for the CVs…already plan to wait for the balance changes to come in.

    • Huh. Normally when people say +/-1 MM its little beyond that. But I think you may be on to something with the wait time opening the que to +/-2. Doubt anything will come of it. But a neat idea none the less. Perhaps a bonus to people daring to open up the +/-2 spread? The longer you wait the better the bonus?

    • I don’t think the game is populated enough for this. Good idea but no way to use it.

  10. Very nice video, Zoup. I’m not watching many WOWS videos these days, but this one was spot on.

  11. Hmm, seems like the lower tier CV gameplay (4-6) vs the higher tier CV gameplay (8-10) live in completely different worlds.

    I’ve only made it to Tier 6 in CVs, but my entire squadron has gotten shot down instantaneously on multiple occasions with only a half-second prompt of the AA-fire notification (usually from a sneaky Kidd that can shoot AA before I can spot it). Hell, I’ve played a Colorado with no AA commander skills and didn’t even set my AA sector and I managed to down an entire squadron of Ryuujou planes with one single lucky flak-burst. This has led me to play more as a scout and ONLY attack when there is a single ship with very poor AA (I won’t even survive a single run against a ship with AA-Def Fire). Naturally, this pisses people off because I can perma-spot most of the team and there is very little they can do about it apart from get a lucky flak burst that nukes the entire squadron from full health to 0 instantly. This isn’t fun for anybody involved.

    The Audacious video you show is fascinating. The torpedo planes seem to fly UNDER the flak during their attack run and appear to be completely immune to it. I’m assuming this is a bug.

    Hilariously, I’ve tested rushing CVs with my Japanese DDs and it works wonders (only worked so far against Tier 4-8 CVs). I hug the borders and sprint full speed to the last spotted location of the enemy CV, hoping that they would rather fly around the middle of the map instead of on the borders and then I pop up around 6-7km away and hold fire until they notice me (it is always too late for them). In 5 out of 5 battles, I’ve managed to sink all CVs (I’ve only gotten 2v2 CV games so far) which cripples their spotting and allowed us to win every time. I digress, you do spend 5+minutes border hugging and praying that the CV doesn’t spot you and that’s not exactly fun and engaging, even if you do manage to close range torp all the enemy CVs. Plus you usually die immediately afterwards when the enemy team turns around to nuke you, so once again it isn’t fun for anyone involved.

    • Yep lower tier CV gameplay is totally different they feel way underwhelming. It is weird that almost nobody speaks about this.

    • +JP zach Umm no CV’s do not really demolish anything at higher tiers either. I just soloed 2 CV’s (t10 + t8) that were protected by a Harugumo with my Grozovoi… I could avoid almost all of their attacks and take only some damage before killing them.

    • +Christopher Pittman The American CV has an issue with the long TB aiming time….u need to spend a more time under aa fire to get that good dispersion so the planes tend to get rekt more than ijn CVs….
      Altho u can drop in a fan shape and still hit a number of torps, the overall feeling is just not as great

  12. I admire your calls for calm far too often especially online people rush to full mental breakdown, this patch does need a lot of work and I do honestly believe it was rushed certainly from the perspective of DD game play but crying like children won’t help

  13. I’m glad you found the new CV to revitalize your enjoyment.

    I found it to be terrible. I can’t enjoy it *at all*. Not because of the balance, but because the gameplay of this new CV just completely disinteresting to me.

  14. I’m not saying I’m quitting. Challenging is great but if playing a game is like ramming your head against a wall there’s no reward. It’s just not fun right now and why play a game if it’s not fun. I’ll come back when they fix the balance.
    It just sucks I fell for the year of premium sale hoping they’d have this fairly balanced instead of rushing it out and ruining the experience for so many of their customers. That, to me, is the real slap in the face. They have customers who pay real money to play their game and you just throw this out to rush a change many didn’t even care about in the first place. It just makes me really cautious about spending cash in the shop now.

  15. I’m calm. Not playing this crap anymore.

  16. You made one critical error in this video. You said we just have to get accustomed to the new meta. Actually, no we don’t. I would rather play Fortnite than World of Warplanes naval version. Yes, it’s that bad. I love this game but this is a major change. Why not just give us a CV opt ou in matches? My god is that so hard. This is not radar or concealment. The whole thing is different and bad. It would be a major mistake to think this will blow over in time. When the new feeling is gone so the players will be as well,

  17. 138 aircraft should have depleted the supply of the CV’s stock this is one of the issues

  18. The game is a flaming disaster. RPF, radar, etc…., not on the same scale, this changes every aspect of the game. The CV play is mind dumbingly dull. Launch, shoot, launch again. Oh such fun. On the receiving side, for DDs: hide (won’t help, you’re dead); CAs hide (oh, you thought you were an AA platform? Ha!); BBs, ok you can take danage. The overall game is simply dumbed down. ALL of the game dynamics are changed, for worse. To be clear: this isn’t fun.

  19. Planes should be limited. Never unlimited

  20. +YorT 138 planes would mean at least 2 cvs. do you want 2 cvs out of 12 teammates be nothing but useless piece of junk floating water doing nothing but just taking space and gigantic points?

  21. regardless of whether u really did shoot down 138 planes
    Minotaur is not only good at taking down planes, but avoiding bombs as well
    Minotaur’s fast turn and the ability to keep the speed while turning makes it so hard for cv to torp or dive bomb

  22. WG can do all the testing in the world regarding the ships but until they open it to live-server testing they will never have enough data to make any meaningful changes with. The only way they obtain the amounts of data they need to make balance changes is either running the test server for a long time to make up for the lack of player population or releasing it to the live client where they can collect a ton of data and make fixes much quicker. Believe me it’s not in a good place right now but there are very real limitations to testing changes with a small group size and it’s not due to any poor planning or negligence.

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