Loading...Hey guys! Today we discuss a topic that popped up in head recently, just when did the game start to change into the one we have today? Let me know what you think down below! Enjoy!
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I’ve been in the game since beta. I’ve had a lot of fun over the years but I think the mistakes we’re seeing now come at least as a tangential result of the original CV rework. It was at the very least a very large signal to the playerbase that all was not well and the reverberations of what WG learned that they could get away with directly mirrior the emboldened changes the company makes to this day. WG successfully implemented sweeping changes that were widely disliked without proper testing and also successfully pushed the community to fighting each other rather than fighting WG themselves. And from the blowback they received they only learned that they could get away with operating their game like that. It also marked a clear departure from the realism that WG claimed to place at the forefront of their design strategy.
There may have been warning signs prior to that but for me this was the first signal that there was something wrong.
The straw that ultimately broke the camel’s back for me was and always will be submarines. I tried to like the game after their addition, but I simply can’t. They’re just no fun to play in or against for me. If you’re still having fun don’t let me ruin the party for you, but after all this time I’m moving on.
Agree the CV rework really changed the gameplay, made CVs materially more powerful and damaged the game experience for non cv players (ie most players)… the addition of the Russian CV line also made AA irrelevant (my experience is that unless you have def AA consumable you can only shoot down 1 or 2 Russian cv planes after (not before) they have launched their attack, so for the CV to not strike with a full squadron the CV player would have had to fly through other ships AA for some time before striking which hardly ever happens. Making a CV line that is practically impossible to deplane and will always launch highly damaging strikes from a full squadron with each attack was a powerful symbol that WG valued the playing experience for CV players above other players. An attempt to rework fighters so they were capable of attacking Russian CV planes (wider patrol area / quicker engagement) or a reweighting of AA defense to strengthen long range AA at the expense of mid/short range AA might be good changes. On Submarines, as you become experienced and learn to not over extend you learn that the only thing you need to fear is large groups of battleships as their combined airborne asw is dangerous to you… destroyers and cruisers with depth charges are frankly little more than target practice that an experienced sub player can easily sink, their only hope is to use island cover (or a distraction) to sneak up on a sub. The reason players hate playing against subs is because the counterplay does not work, if sub torpedoes had a longer minimum arming range and stopped homing on destroyers and cruisers at the same distance as they currently do for battleships the counterplay might be more realistic (distance for BB could use a small increase as well). I don’t know if this is enough, however frankly it feels like WG is openly flaunting it’s lack of respect for player feedback on these material concerns by not effectively balancing submarines or Russian CVs, frankly it wouldn’t take much to make a balancing change to materially improve the playing experience and help retain existing players.
@Mith I usually leave my subs and CVs in the garage…port.
yea im also from CBT and with subs i only play operations now same with world of tanks stoped playing when they introduce “ferraris”
I’m not one to usually boast about wowsl but you genuinely should look at legends it’s not got subs and it’s a difrent game all together but frankly playing both I actually like the laid back nature of legends.
Me personally I think the worse thing about it is the grind is more grindy (not warthunder bad) the commanders have a pretty big effect on your ship though which is a double-edged sword imo. As well as the lack of clans or training rooms
having a witchita with a sub 2 second rudder and 40 knots is pretty fun with the premium commanders.
Or atago which you can build multiple ways, guns, fire, reload, rudder,exc.
dont forget the commander perks . dead eye that made people more passive in battle just to activate the skill .
The moment money (and torpedoes) became more important than actual gameplay.
As soon as it came out of Beta then…
I think the removal of friendly fire was a big change.
I for one would accidently dropp bombs on firndly subs just by mistake ofc
I had that happen to me I fired my guns and at that same moment some knob head pulled out in front of me so I blew him right out of the water and I got penalised glad its gone
sure made for a lot more satisfying way to deal with people throwing chat tantrums than reporting them though
I think where they went wrong was the reworks. The cv rework that killed aa fire and the econ rework that killed the ability to make xp and credits. Another place they went wrong is where they allowed some of their employees to become paid throws in gameplay such as ranked. Also neglecting submarine detection is bad as well.
I’m sort of like the other people War Lord talks about. Those who don’t go in with a predetermined belief that they “went wrong”. I loved the game before and I love the game now. I have days when I play for hours and days when I just play a few games as time allows. To me, CVs and subs mean variety. You just have to play a different style which makes the game more fun to play.
For me the big killer was the CV rework, I loved playing mid tier CVs and playing AA cruisers, it was satisfying being able to zone out CVs and fight for air control, making calculated and decisive attack runs with torps or bombers
The rework saved CVs in fact. It might be the case that people individually prefer one way or the other. But it is no matter of opinion that CVs are way more balanced then they used to be before the rework. And even today a lot of people cry out how OP CVs were. But those are mostly people who have no clue of CV gameplay, let alone of pre-rework gameplay. Some CVs are stronger than others, some ships are more prone to fall victim to CVs than others, but that is no different from any other class. And at least with CVs like they are right now will not dominate an entire game all alone. The old RTS style CVs meant, if there was one unicum CV player vs one meh CV player, the rest of the team could basically go afk. They had no saying in how the game ends. You still have such games where you can’t influence who wins. But that is only because there is a huge skill gap between teams overall, not one individual player. So even if you prefer the old style, it was the right choice or CVs would have to be removed from the game entirely.
I agree with the CV rework now I like some thing of it and less of others. I feel ships that even are strong AA platforms can’t wreck planes like they used to. I wish I could remember the exact video but I remember one where it was I think a Halland a Thunderer and something else I forget exactly what it was but two of those three ships have strong AA platforms. and when a CV can still get a strike off through 1/4 of a team it makes it feel like they can seriously punch up. So if you have say 2 CV’s on a team in those kind of games on average to have a chance of fighting back with AA that that is half a team taken up by maybe 2 players. Which has got worse with the Russian CV’s that can strike out of most ships AA range all together. I am not a game balancer but when counter play becomes less and less you just gives you a feeling of why bother. I think that is more the issue is counter play feels like it’s becoming harder and harder to do for some things.
I actually got a lot of enjoyment out of playing AA CVs, where I’d build for fighters and provide air cover for my team. An enemy CV who didn’t recognize what I was doing would quickly get de-planed and knocked out of the game, by then my reduced strike ability could still help my team mop up.
I guess only one playstyle is allowed now.
@Flomotion8000 Well you’re wrong but hey, to each their own
The original CV play was bizarre, as if when flying one suddenly went from a 3 dimensional world into a flat 2 dimensional one.
I have to imagine that losing long time players in favor of new players is worth it to WG but it does make me a bit sad that this game I used to love and was decent at is now unplayable to me
That is actually not true. There aren’t enough new players to augment the loss of veteran players that have and do spend a lot of money on the game.
Same for me 6-1/2 years and I am done with the BS!
I think Flamu recently put it well (who I don’t always agree with because he OTT exaggerates a lot of things); in the early years, up to about 2018 we got a couple of new tech lines a year, the odd premium and the game was hailed as one of the best examples of a free-to-play model that was still profitable as a business model. The best ships could be attained for free, but there were advantages to spending money and the premiums offered value. And then WG saw the $ really start pouring in, saw everything that companies like EA could do when they really turned the screw and the greed began and sadly WG have never looked back, because the money continues to pour in. And yes, they have an insanely profitable business model, there’s no denying it.
For me there isn’t one moment where everything changed, but it was when WG began to focus more on the monetisation than on creating a worthwhile game. If I had to put a finger on it, it was when the policy of Early-Access came in or the first Dockyard event.
Now, WG crap out lines at a ridiculous rate, spit out premiums as fast as possible and monetise every aspect of the game to the point some mobile games look less predatory. It’s no longer about whether people play the game regularly, it’s just a gacha system dressed up as a game. For newer players who haven’t seen any different, this is normal or may even be what they want, as well as the normalisation of predatory monetisation in gaming in general.
But hey, I try to look at the positives, and thanks to WG’s attitude, I’m spending a lot more of my time playing other games that scratch my gaming itch and is saving me money that I might have considered spending on WoWS, so I guess thanks WG…
I really agree there are too many new ships. I think one full tech line and one split per 4 months period is the most they should ever do. Never have several early access going on at the same time.
I recall the Capt skills update saying we were going from 19 to 21 point Capt. I was excited, then only to find out that PT went from a 1 point skill to a 2 point skill and AR went from a 2 point skill to a 3 point skill. So it was then I realized that I had to grind like hell just to get my Capt back to where it was . Terribly frustrating and useless.
The first hint for me was the blending of the classes. BBs in the cruiser match maker, Cruiser fire power in the DD line, etc.
CV Rework is where it started. Unable to set fire or flood them. Unable to shoot the planes down. Multi reattack air strikes.
I definitely still enjoy playing the game – just not random battles anymore, and definitely not higher tier ones. The constant uptiers, and the subs…! When subs were introduced, I actually was a bit excited – I could make ASW DDs! I can screen for my team and do something unique and useful with a class I don’t normally enjoy that much! Only to find out submerged submarines out-run and out-turn me. My RDF and hydro doesn’t detect them, their endless pinging does almost nothing to reveal their location, and their sidewinder missiles – er, I mean torps, are apparently belt-fed. They laugh off gun hits, dive, then fix their flooding while submerged. So much for that. I’m sure it’s very fun for the sub players.
Never mind, I guess, back to random operations. WG is the only one who makes a game even remotely like this, so they can do whatever they want. It’d be nice if they didn’t rub our faces in it.
I don’t play random or coop… I used to play random exclusively until players started running to the 10 line or just hiding and doing nothing all game long, it’s just not fun anymore. I play ranked, brawl and any special battles they have going on… no more hide and seek random for me.
@Steven Bland I played random exclusively as well. Now I avoid it almost entirely. I tried divisioning with a friend new to the game. He had a T6 and I tried going in with a T7, lowest I still had before I would have to re-buy a lower tier – it just meant that he was fighting against T9s in his T6. Just stupid.
The way to beat subs is TEAMWORK. Work with your team’s sub to detect and sink the enemy sub with depth charges and airstrike. Subs hunting subs using torps is also great fun. I’ve shotgunned subs as a sub underwater.
A submarine is really not very different from a DD that can hide by diving instead of smoke. A DD can sneak up and shotgun a BB hiding behind and island, etc.
@Loanword Eggcorn The diving also makes it invincible and it can still move at will, it’s not like smoke at all. Smoke can be defeated by hydro, or radar, or if the DDs is shooting a lot, you can follow his shells and shoot him back, or the DD can be driven out of the smoke and then has to wait for the smoke to re-charge, etc etc etc. It’s actually insane to compare the two. What if you don’t have a sub that wants to cooperate? The rest of the team, including the supposedly sub-hunting DDs, are just screwed? Come on dude, no other class is like that to play against.
If the sub gave up ONE of their made-up strengths, they’d be fun to play against. Like they could keep their absurd surface speeds and agility and stealth if they then had to go dead slow when submerged, so they’d have to carefully judge detection range like DDs do, or if they get spotted they risk a DD running them down. Or when they’re damaged, they would have to surface to repair, so maybe they’d have to eat flooding damage for a few seconds until they were sure they could surface in a safe spot. Or if they pinged, they would reveal their position, so they would have to use it carefully instead of the total nonsense we have now. Just getting rid of ONE would give other players a reasonable counter and make subs not infuriating to play with. I suspect you could even do away with airstrike depth charges from BBs if you gave the subs just one of these real-life weaknesses. (These are all reasons why subs didn’t take part in fleet actions irl)
@Loanword Eggcorn Teamwork and WOWS don’t go together. Subs torps are easy to defeat all by yourself, their torps stop homing and are visual at 2+km or 8 seconds. You almost have to be AFK to get hit by them or camping behind an island and not moving.
EU DDs came more than 12 months after the CV rework tho.
My career was as a game designer and yes power-creep and gimmick-creep are real inevitabilities. But in a game like this a priority is to keep the ‘realistic flavor’ of the play even though there are arcade-type elements to keep the pace from being too slow. But when a new gimmick crosses too far over the arcade line that it destroys the realistic feel of the play, it ruins the game, and that is the case with submarines. They have magic torpedoes that reload so fast a destroyer — which should be the nemesis of a sub — cannot dare attack it, because he will have to dodge three top salvos to do it. This is not fun, and it is not realistic … thus the frustration with them. I’ve been playing this game since the beginning and I love its beautiful graphics and the fun of operating a realistic-looking battleship — but now play is just frustrating. WG’s strategy of alienating long-time players in favor of bringing in new players is a losing strategy in the long run. They need to nerf the hell out of subs, or give players the option to play a sub-free game.
I think converting all sub torps to deep water torps so they can’t hurt DDs can be a solution. And then give them all deck guns so they can fight off ailing DDs that way
I think a one-carrier and one-sub limit per team would go a long way towards abating some of the frustration.
My experience with online competitive games is that the veteran player base will always prefer to scale the game down to a narrow core. While new players prefer the excitement of a wide variety of experiences.
The sign of a healthy game is one that can appeal to both camps.
I wasn’t so worried about the superships as they first introduced them but it seems since that time the balance in high tier random battles has been off. It’s not just the superships, that’s just when it started to become noticeable for me that there was an issue. The addition of many newer CVs and subs has forced players to change the way they play making the random games less enjoyable. So many times I push and get into a spotting position for my team with what looked like at least a couple mates coming close and then I look again and they’ve turned back and away and can’t hit anything I’m spotting while asking for intel on the other side of the map. That iS gOoD fUn! I used to enjoy playing the high tier dd gunships but have about given up on those unless it’s ranked or brawls. I just playing tier VII or lower if going to random now.
I think the CV rework really was the first nail in the coffin for me. I actually really enjoyed the RTS CV gameplay, it was refreshing and different enough from normal gameplay that mastering it required skill all on its own. That was really the start that WG wanted to cater to new players and gimmicks rather than the veteran player base.