Airstrike madness

[casualsailor]

50k dmg and 4 fires in single strike?

Could it be that following its success with CVs that Wargaming has decided that the best way to promote the sale of Premium ships and camos is to create new ships so ridiculously OP that it will motivate individuals to quickly purchase them before they are nerfed so they may create the most toxic environment possible?

I'm sure when the player base begins to complain about these noxious players and their asinine ships Wargaming will be quick to note how the spreadsheet says everyone is having a jolly time.

Unfortunately something tells me this feature will not be effective against CVs. At least not until, as the Devs have noted, the sale of Premium CVs and ancillaries rises to the level to justify their development cost.

Everyone enjoy the new meta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIndvZwM9cU

[Banzai]

The bombs will only reliably hit someone who isnt moving or at least being incredibly predictable. The poor Alaska in the video that has been doing the rounds obviously didnt know (on day one of them being in live test) that you really shouldnt be camping if theres a chance of an airstrike.

It reminds me of German CVs - are the AP missile planes OP because they can score many cits on someone who allows them to hit broadside (but even with the tiniest bit of angling they would deal next to no damage)?

For the record - in the Alaska vid about half the damage was from gun fire on him (and the enemy div was 3 top players so would have been tricky whatever they were sailing).

We shall see how it changes as the test continues anyway.

[Nepgear]

Originalmente postado por Banzai:

For the record - in the Alaska vid about half the damage was from gun fire on him

Guess Alaska is tankier than Montana then.

[casualsailor]

Originalmente postado por Der den Döner klaut:

Yeah, Flamu is a good player but a very bad source for information overall. He is selling drama. I would not trust his information.

On the one hand we have Flamu providing his viewers with video evidence of the information he provides and then supplying his opinions which one is free to accept or reject. On the other hand we have you expressing your opinion that he is a "bad source for information" without any evidence at all.

In whom should a rational person trust?

[York]

to avoid being a screaching baboon i have some ideas on ways to balance it

1. you cannot stack bombing runs (drop one reload drop again)
2. upon calling it in a volly of flairs are dropped in the area to mark out the position giving the player in the spot a choice of move or suffer.(also would shut up the arguement that you cant't see it till its too late.)
3. perhaps drop them a little further out side the AA range?

a joke idea would be to swap bomb stats with the british carriers (not a good idea)

those are my ideas wonder if anyone else has any?

[Nepgear]

Originalmente postado por The iron warsmith:

to avoid being a screaching baboon i have some ideas on ways to balance it

1. you cannot stack bombing runs (drop one reload drop again)
2. upon calling it in a volly of flairs are dropped in the area to mark out the position giving the player in the spot a choice of move or suffer.(also would shut up the arguement that you cant't see it till its too late.)
3. perhaps drop them a little further out side the AA range?

a joke idea would be to swap bomb stats with the british carriers (not a good idea)

those are my ideas wonder if anyone else has any?

That sounds pretty decent. I think if the flares landed at least 10s before the planes show up and if the planes spawned 7km out so they'd have to get through AA it would be a lot more reasonable. I'd replace the bomb specs with lower tier British CV specs as well because the damage is just ridiculous if it hits (like t6-8 get Furious' bombs and t9-10 get Implacable's bombs).

[Nepgear]

Does anyone know if the airstrike can spot like fighters?

[York]

Originalmente postado por Nepgear:

Does anyone know if the airstrike can spot like fighters?

if it can that could give it a use in catching dds though at a massive trade of firepower

[dakin1]

I also see that the T10 HE bombs have 46 mm armor pen. Guess which country has ships with >50 mm deck armor? Da tovarisch--glorious Stalinium armor again for the win.
I still think the airstrike should spawn at the friendly map edge of whichever team called it in and then travel across the map to the drop point. Having it spawn ~5 km away and immediately dive (to avoid any flak that manages to be fired) is too OP.

[Lavian]

Originalmente postado por Banzai:

The bombs will only reliably hit someone who isnt moving or at least being incredibly predictable. The poor Alaska in the video that has been doing the rounds obviously didnt know (on day one of them being in live test) that you really shouldnt be camping if theres a chance of an airstrike.

It reminds me of German CVs - are the AP missile planes OP because they can score many cits on someone who allows them to hit broadside (but even with the tiniest bit of angling they would deal next to no damage)?

For the record - in the Alaska vid about half the damage was from gun fire on him (and the enemy div was 3 top players so would have been tricky whatever they were sailing).

We shall see how it changes as the test continues anyway.

It's only been 2:30 into the match when the Alaska is hit. It's hit by strikes from a single ship (as is noted by all three of the airstrikes having a single player's name on them), not the entire div. It got targeted by 5 ships within 2 minutes of the match starting. At no point was the Alaska completely stationary.

What do you see as the Alaska's option here? It was targeted by literally half the enemy team at one point (including two BBs), and it's not like it even had time to particularly overextend even if it wanted to. What happens if Alaska doesn't reverse and attempt to use the island as cover in this situation?

There's time to balance this, sure, but the thing about WoWs is that it manages to (sort of) balance matches by mirroring ship types and tiers. The more gimmicky and different a ship is from the rest of its type, the more difficult it becomes to properly balance, since you can no longer properly mirror it due to just how different it is from the rest of the ships of its type. Ironically, ships like Alaska are a good example of this difficulty of balancing ships that are unlike the rest of the type they're classed as part of.

If we see this as a tool that makes staying behind cover deadly, if one team has access to airstrikes and the other does not, what does that mean for balance?

[York]

Originalmente postado por Lavian:

Originalmente postado por Banzai:

The bombs will only reliably hit someone who isnt moving or at least being incredibly predictable. The poor Alaska in the video that has been doing the rounds obviously didnt know (on day one of them being in live test) that you really shouldnt be camping if theres a chance of an airstrike.

It reminds me of German CVs - are the AP missile planes OP because they can score many cits on someone who allows them to hit broadside (but even with the tiniest bit of angling they would deal next to no damage)?

For the record - in the Alaska vid about half the damage was from gun fire on him (and the enemy div was 3 top players so would have been tricky whatever they were sailing).

We shall see how it changes as the test continues anyway.

It's only been 2:30 into the match when the Alaska is hit. It's hit by strikes from a single ship (as is noted by all three of the airstrikes having a single player's name on them), not the entire div. It got targeted by 5 ships within 2 minutes of the match starting. At no point was the Alaska completely stationary.

What do you see as the Alaska's option here? It was targeted by literally half the enemy team at one point (including two BBs), and it's not like it even had time to particularly overextend even if it wanted to. What happens if Alaska doesn't reverse and attempt to use the island as cover in this situation?

There's time to balance this, sure, but the thing about WoWs is that it manages to (sort of) balance matches by mirroring ship types and tiers. The more gimmicky and different a ship is from the rest of its type, the more difficult it becomes to properly balance, since you can no longer properly mirror it due to just how different it is from the rest of the ships of its type. Ironically, ships like Alaska are a good example of this difficulty of balancing ships that are unlike the rest of the type they're classed as part of.

If we see this as a tool that makes staying behind cover deadly, if one team has access to airstrikes and the other does not, what does that mean for balance?

i still think super cruisers should get their own classification and point value

[Lavian]

Originalmente postado por The iron warsmith:

Originalmente postado por Lavian:

It's only been 2:30 into the match when the Alaska is hit. It's hit by strikes from a single ship (as is noted by all three of the airstrikes having a single player's name on them), not the entire div. It got targeted by 5 ships within 2 minutes of the match starting. At no point was the Alaska completely stationary.

What do you see as the Alaska's option here? It was targeted by literally half the enemy team at one point (including two BBs), and it's not like it even had time to particularly overextend even if it wanted to. What happens if Alaska doesn't reverse and attempt to use the island as cover in this situation?

There's time to balance this, sure, but the thing about WoWs is that it manages to (sort of) balance matches by mirroring ship types and tiers. The more gimmicky and different a ship is from the rest of its type, the more difficult it becomes to properly balance, since you can no longer properly mirror it due to just how different it is from the rest of the ships of its type. Ironically, ships like Alaska are a good example of this difficulty of balancing ships that are unlike the rest of the type they're classed as part of.

If we see this as a tool that makes staying behind cover deadly, if one team has access to airstrikes and the other does not, what does that mean for balance?

i still think super cruisers should get their own classification and point value

Maybe, but the problem is that there aren't a lot of them out there, and the matchmaker often does really bad things when it can't match ship types/tiers properly.

...

I had written a whole lot more about how this could be mitigated and why the solution mitigating it might not be worthwhile from an entertainment perspective, but er... that's not really what this topic is about so, meh.

Suffice to say that when there aren't a lot of ships sufficiently similar to each other, balancing them is difficult.

[Banzai]

Fact remains that the guy in the video was one of the first on any server to be a victim of an airstrike so wouldnt have actually known that sitting stationary nose on (in what can be a good position) could be punished like this. As with anything in the game, knowing how to adapt to these things can mitigate their impact. This is why I mentioned the German AP rockets above - most people now know that you need to angle a bit as they attack or you will be citted if you are in a cruiser. If someone doesnt know this or bother to angle then it doesnt make the rockets op.

As an Alaska in a match versus Dutch cruisers I certainly wouldnt have gone to sit where he did - he would have been a lot safer bow on in open water a bit further back while working out where the unicum airstrike division was and playing with his speed to avoid incoming aggro. Not a criticism of him - no way he could know at that point, but as time goes on and people learn how to adapt to new mechanics I can guarentee they wont seem so scary.

[casualsailor]

"Victim?" I can see why one would use that word to describe the Atlanta. Calling him or her a combatant in that particular match against the Dutch ship would be a stretch given that he or she was unable to effect any damage to the attacking Dutch ship.

This appears to be the new meta for Wargaming, i.e. creating victims which others can attack with impunity. The CV being the obvious example. That is not a complaint but merely an observation.

Whether or not it is fair is irrelevant. Nowhere in the EULA is the word "fair" mentioned. The owner of the Alaska got the ship for free or Free XP and therefore has no standing to complain about any imbalance or inequity. If his or her purpose in that match was to be a victim then he or she fulfilled that purpose successfully.

It is important not to lose sight of the purpose of anything Wargaming does. And that purpose is to convince the maximum number of people to spend the maximum amount of money to purchase Premium ships and ancillaries. Anyone suggesting changes to the Airstrike mechanism which does not encourage individuals to purchase premium products would do well to remember that.

Personally, I would like to see the arms race enhanced. Allow individuals to purchase overpowered weaponry then allow others to purchase defensive module to mitigate them. I might be convinced to fork over several dollars of doubloons if I could equip my favorite destroyers with sufficient anti-air weapons to blunt the attack of a Midway or FDR.

[Lavian]

Originalmente postado por Banzai:

Fact remains that the guy in the video was one of the first on any server to be a victim of an airstrike so wouldnt have actually known that sitting stationary nose on (in what can be a good position) could be punished like this. As with anything in the game, knowing how to adapt to these things can mitigate their impact. This is why I mentioned the German AP rockets above - most people now know that you need to angle a bit as they attack or you will be citted if you are in a cruiser. If someone doesnt know this or bother to angle then it doesnt make the rockets op.

As an Alaska in a match versus Dutch cruisers I certainly wouldnt have gone to sit where he did - he would have been a lot safer bow on in open water a bit further back while working out where the unicum airstrike division was and playing with his speed to avoid incoming aggro. Not a criticism of him - no way he could know at that point, but as time goes on and people learn how to adapt to new mechanics I can guarentee they wont seem so scary.

Your claim is that the Alaska was punished for sitting stationary. I actually reject this claim. Again, at no point was Alaska completely stationary.

Maybe that was his intention, maybe it wasn't, but the fact is that the Alaska was actually constantly moving except for the single instant in which he ran into the island.

I encourage you to watch the replay again. Pay attention to when Alaska is spotted, when Alaska is targeted, what Alaska's speed is, when planes are visible, and when Alaska gets hit.

It's notable that the time span between Alaska being spotted for the first time in the match and being hit by the first bomb is 1 minute and 9 seconds. This does not mean it takes a minute for the air strike to arrive, this is simply the time between Alaska being visible to the enemy at all and being hit by a single cruiser for absurd amounts of damage, again, all within 3 minutes of the match starting.

Saying that players should or will learn to adapt doesn't really say anything. It offers no insight into how anything at all impacts the game.

Still, again, if we see this as a tool that makes staying behind cover deadly, if one team has access to airstrikes and the other does not, what does that mean for balance? How do you see mitigating the fact that this tactical option has pretty much been wiped off the table for one team while the other team still has it?

[Uncle64]

I just hope they do some changes on it. There is some other clips of it where it happens to others, and some do actually manage to get away from the bombs.