CV rework revealed

[Crossfader 1,140]

https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/carrier-on-my-wayward-pun/

So WG unveiled the long awaited CV rework with a special stream.

First impressions... meh. It looks interesting, keep in mind literally nothing has been balanced, they just got it working.

My main problem is that they moved even further away from playing a "CV" to basically its now WoWp. Its even more micro management, you literally now only manage one squad.

I would rather it have been a macro style gameplay,  were you stay more focused on your ship, but manage for example: setting up CAP defence for your self and your fleet, build strike groups and tell them how to attack etc etc.

[Madner Kami 377]

8 minutes ago, Crossfader said:

https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/carrier-on-my-wayward-pun/

So WG unveiled the long awaited CV rework with a special stream.

First impressions... meh. It looks interesting, keep in mind literally nothing has been balanced, they just got it working.

My main problem is that they moved even further away from playing a "CV" to basically its now WoWp. Its even more micro management, you literally now only manage one squad.

I would rather it have been a macro style gameplay,  were you stay more focused on your ship, but manage for example: setting up CAP defence for your self and your fleet, build strike groups and tell them how to attack etc etc.

By "CAP" defense you mean what exactly? Carrier Airplane Defence? Literally cap defence? Sorry if I don't see the obvious, just got home from a long day at work.

Truth be told, I lost interest in watching the video as soon as you wrote "you manage only one squad". Seems like the worst idea ever. Tanks is pretty much dead to me, between having no time and just overall terrible direction of development. Warships was the game that I still hoped to have more time to play and even though I'm not a carrier-main or a carrier-player on the level of a Farazelleth, I really enjoyed playing (defensive or air control) carriers, was and am pretty good at it and was looking forward to maybe, if I had the time, to become my clan's go-to carrier-man. If they really plan to do what I think you implied there, then this is just another thing I am not looking forward to anymore, ruining just another WarGaming-game, or at least kill a pretty major appeal for that particular game to me.

Ugh. I'm depressed now. Fuck this.

[Crossfader 1,140]

3 hours ago, Madner Kami said:

By "CAP" defense you mean what exactly? Carrier Airplane Defence? Literally cap defence? Sorry if I don't see the obvious, just got home from a long day at work.

 

Combat air patrol, basically they send fighters up to patrol around or at a certain point

[Madner Kami 377]

20 minutes ago, Crossfader said:

Combat air patrol, basically they send fighters up to patrol around or at a certain point

Thank you.

Also, I checked the Twitch-stream about the Carrier rework and found MrConway playing a Yamato and Worcester. Thank you very much, WarGaming. Your dedication to fixing the carriers is nicely reflected by this. At least the devpost on Facebook is up already:

Quote

ST. Aircraft Carriers New Gameplay

World of Warships Development Blog·Montag, 3. September 2018

Dear players!

We would like to share with you the first details about the new aircraft carrier gameplay and even show you a prototype. Before continuing, we would like you to keep in mind that all the information here is preliminary and some elements like progression, commanders skills, modernization are not yet available. The final version of this updated class will depend on the data we are going to collect and analyse at all stages of our testing.

Reasons and goals of changes

Aircraft Carriers in World of Warships were always different from any other ship class because of their specific game control. It was needed to bring diversity to the game and to highlight their unique role in a battle and real life. However, over time, it had become clear that their exceptional role causes several issues such as:

• High difficulty in mastering and because of it – an excessive gap between experienced players and beginners who may be excluded from a battle without a chance to do something about it.
• As a result, low class popularity and no stable presence in battles.
• Nevertheless, there was an excessive impact on a battle because of the several reasons:
  • possibility of scouting using several squadrons interfering with destroyers, detecting the enemy team and actually blocking initiatives and unexpected maneuvers.
  • possibility of dealing critical damage to almost any target in a short period of time, especially on high levels;
• Combination of aircraft carriers’ features and AA defense working mechanics resulted in a situation where it’s impossible to shoot airplanes down (for example, average destroyer chased by a squadron) or quite the opposite case where planes can be destroyed immediately (Des Moines with full AA defense set). Shooting down several planes has almost no impact on a game. Moreover, confrontation between an aircraft carrier and its target comes down to “AA Defense Fire” activation and attempts to maneuver which are easy to counter using several squadrons.
• Counterintuitive difference between automatic and manual attack which work very differently, and doesn’t imply any smooth skill growth suggesting a very “high bar” instead.
• The main gameplay doesn’t look attractive to most of the players because its main feature is managing several squadrons with a top down, 'bird's eye' view . In other words, the gameplay is “cut off” from a main battle and fixed on micromanagement.
• Moreover, there is a big question when it comes to “AA defense ships” and “AA defense sets”: if there are not enough aircraft carriers and its playerbase isn’t stable, why spend your modernizations, skill points and consumables on AA defense.

These issues had been considered in different periods of time due to your feedback, and we tried to find a solution using partial changes and upgrades. However, at some point it turned out that we needed some integrated approach and “rebooting” the whole class using an innovative concept which will consider all initial issues and challenges. That’s what we would like to achieve:

• Adequate “complexity curve” of aircraft carriers which implies smooth skill growth;
• Enjoyable gameplay that will:
  • Be attractive for most of the players;
  • Give more space for resourcefulness of aircraft carrier and its targets as well;
• Create a balanced, integrated class that will enrich the game without ruining it for others;
• Increase aircraft carriers’ popularity and enhance AA defense ships.

Main differences of the new concept

The Squadron is still the main combat unit for aircraft carrier players, the only difference is that you control only one at a time. This decision will solve several issues like excessive spotting and damage potential, and too much micromanagement that can be mastered only by a minority of players. This raises the question: will it be entertaining to play with only one squadron?” The answer is positive here because now it’s a direct squadron’s control:

• In our new concept you can control your squadron directly using WASD keys or mouse. There are options for speeding up and slowing down (forcing engines or shifting to planning) when turning.
• Player will maneuver among explosions of AA defenses shells while attacking a ship and choose the right moment and direction to launch torpedoes, bombs or rockets (more info about that below);
• An attacks success will depend on the player’s skill. The player will have the ability to plan their moves and due to that increase the attacks efficiency. For instance, if you plan and start an attack run with torpedo bombers in advance, the torpedo spread will be narrower, in contrast to a rushed attack, when your target is too close, then the spread will be wider;
• Player uses only several planes instead of a whole squadron while conducting an attack. Upon attack completion, the aircraft that have expended their payloads go back to the aircraft carrier automatically. This allows players to have several attacks using one squadron, select different targets or eliminate one target with several attacks.
• When a squadron is used up, another selected one takes off instantly and player will shift between them without any extra waiting;
• All squadrons are focused on damaging ships: torpedo bombers, bombers are well known among our players, but we plan to add attack planes equipped with aircraft rockets;
• Fighters will become an ability: player will be able to call them on a squadron’s position and after some time they will come for patrolling. Spotting enemies’ planes they will try to draw them into battle and destroy them. Fighters’ direct control hasn’t been planned because we would like you to focus your attention on ships attack not other planes.
• Aircraft Carriers can no longer become 'de-planed' and redundant. According to our new concept, your reserve of planes is unlimited. However, throwing them into combat thoughtlessly and recklessly will increase the preparation time for the next flight.

AA defense workings

After adding new gameplay and direct control of a single squadron, we also wanted to implement improvements to the operation of AA defense. Current mechanics can just basically identify plane loss in a kill zone with some probability. Our new concept has some essential differences:

• Every plane has its own HP, they can be damaged and shot down individually;
• Planes entering the zone of close range AA defense (consisting of mostly machine guns) will be guaranteed to suffer significant damage.
• Long and medium range AA defense will aim at planes and automatically fire at them. For the player it will be obvious that some zones of AA defense are better not to fly into. As the players planes fly into those areas, they will be likely to receive some damage.
• Instead of the previous click on enemy’s squadron (that put priority on it), players will be able to shift between left and right sectors of AA defense. The selected AA defense sector gets a fire intensity increase whilst the other sector sees it decrease. Thus, player can face enemies‘ planes with a hail of fire from one side but the other side will be more vulnerable for the attack; it's worth mentioning that switching sectors is a very important tactical element because it may take tens of seconds.

To learn more about new concept in attacking ships watch the video below:

https://youtu.be/ReLOCxKzl6I

Plans for testing, development and transition

We understand that after receiving this information you may have a lot of questions and concerns. To clarify at the start: more details could be discussed later as we’re getting closer to the final implementation. For now, let’s discuss some of them.

What about consumables, level up, modernization, diversity and everything?

The main goal now is to test the gameplay’s basis and the concept itself. We will definitely continue our development on that case and be sure that you’ll get a lot of options for diversity and many tactical moves.

So everything is being changed but I can’t even test or affect these changes?

You can. We have decided to have a closed testing to make sure that everything works correctly without technical difficulties. During our beta testing we together plan to improve the gameplay, implement some partial improvements and prepare for the release.

When will it be available?

We know that most of you have been waiting these changes literally for years. However, we hope you understand that this is a global and a pretty risky task, not just changing several lines in TTC. We want to be sure that our new gameplay is enjoyable for majority, suits the game and causes no technical issues. So the answer here is pretty honest – you’ll be able to see these changes, when everything is ready.

What if I wouldn’t like these changes? I bought premium aircraft carriers, leveled them up.

We are fully aware how serious these changes are. There is no need to go into detail now, but you can be sure that you’ll have an opportunity to abandon your current aircraft carriers as premium ships and leveled up ones and get an appropriate replacement.In conclusion, we would like to thank all our players who have shared their feedback with us, played aircraft carriers despite all the issues and everybody who’s ready to help us to improve our game. We have absolutely no doubt that with your support we’ll “reboot” this pretty challenging class, make it more popular, interesting, balanced and bring more diversity to the gameplay. See you soon in the air!

FAQ

Here is the list of possible questions that may occur after this announcement. We hope that our answers will clear the air around them!

Will be tactical screen available in the new concept?

— Yes, as for any other ship class.

Will you save the number of planes in squadron for different nations?

— We are still working on that question, we hope that testing results will help us with that.

Do I need to press extra buttons to get back to the base?

— No, but it's worth mentioning that only planes that are used up return to the base.

Will you change matchmaking because of these changes?

— We think about adding several aircraft carriers to the battle from each side, but this idea should be tested first.

Will you rework commanders skills?

— We will probably rework commanders skills.

Can I launch, for example, a torpedo squadron and fighter squadron and switch between them as needed?

— No, you can control only one squadron at a time.

Will we be able to customize how many squadrons of each type we have? How many planes are in each squadron etc?

— No, because it's a part of the game balance and it will be set.

Can I help in testing?

— Of course! Stay tuned and don't miss our news about the beginning of the public test.

How will the skill required increase as you progress up the tiers?

— On every tier planes speed will increase so as the power of AA defense fire. The number of planes in squadron will change from tier to tier. Moreover, ships under attack will be able to switch between AA defense sectors creating zones of AA defense attack. This will result in development of more complex maneuvers and tactical decisions in managing your squadron's attack, because chances of receiving significant damage and dealing it to your enemies will increase relatively.

How does spotting work - any changes for fighter ability, returning planes, visual indicators?

— According to our new concept, aircraft carriers use only one squadron at a time and that decreases the spotting area. In addition to that we will add more changes. For example, which planes should spot torpedoes and when? We'll need to figure this all out during the testing.

What about damage output (alpha vs damage per time)?

— Our changes will bring more balance to ships under CV's attack when they will receive a chance to fight back and survive on any tier. Aircraft carriers will be able to knock out their opponent in several attacks or destroy it with alpha-strike.

XP & credit income changes?

— We change the role of aircraft carriers in a battle but XP and income will have the same principle as for any other ship class.

How is the consumable defensive AA affected by this?

— It will be reworked but we will be able to provide more details only after testing.

Any additional rework for non-CV AA planned (effects, skills, balance for e.g. cruisers)?

— AA defense mechanics will be changed however, but AA sets for ships stay the same.

Blegh. If I want to play Warplanes, I play Warplanes. Blegh. Just blegh. The AA changes, I can get behind, but the CAG-changes are just blegh.

[TouchFluffyTail 595]

Looks like they managed something that is an improvement, while making things much worse at the same time.

[Crossfader 1,140]

3 hours ago, TouchFluffyTail said:

Looks like they managed something that is an improvement, while making things much worse at the same time.

WG plane simulator 2018....

Like seriously, how was that a CV rework, we never saw a ship in that entire demo, might as well have been world of warplane.

[Assassin7 4,136]

I dont even think theres anything particularly wrong with the current CV mechanics.

[TouchFluffyTail 595]

It's a binary win/lose with no options for counterplay, that is heavily in favor of the carrier in almost all circumstances.

[Madner Kami 377]

1 hour ago, TouchFluffyTail said:

It's a binary win/lose with no options for counterplay, that is heavily in favor of the carrier in almost all circumstances.

Counterplay to carriers are AA and carrier air superiorty by your own team's carrier. One has the problem of being a binary thing thanks to their AA damage mechanics (something they could change) and the other has the problem of player-skill-disparity, something they just can not change feasibly and that is entirely a problem of the playerbase. Neither is fixed by playing a World of Warplanes minigame in World of Warships and practically removing an entire subset of counterplay (air superiority) while they are at it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mind that they want to involve the carrier-player more with his ship-attacks and I kinda think that this can solve the do or die alpha striking that carriers tend to force to have any success in a carrier at all (hello fuxxed AA-mechanics), but they are doing a huge disservice to everyone by essentially removing the air superiority and large chunks of the recon gameplay and practically solely forcing carriers to be damage dealers.

[orzel286 236]

3 hours ago, TouchFluffyTail said:

It's a binary win/lose with no options for counterplay, that is heavily in favor of the carrier in almost all circumstances.

Hmmm, where have we seen it before?

2 hours ago, Madner Kami said:

Counterplay to carriers are AA and carrier air superiorty by your own team's carrier.

Errrrr, that's not a thing anymore. Fighters are a consumable now, that you send to patrol certain area for a certain amount of time, the number of fighters in a group equals the number of planes they will shoot down. So for example 4 fighters vs 10 attack aircaft = 4 attack aircraft shot down.

 

Dumbing down cv gameplay like this is means that glue eating bb mains will switch to carriers, if wg decides to remove cv limits it's pre-nerfs arty all over again. #Remove_Carriers

[CompanionCav 27]

The reason CV skillgap impacted outcome so much was that not because "RTS didn't work" but because mistakes were punished disproportionately.

Limited hangar + fighter lock that one can't back away (strafing out to escape rarely works if opponent knows how to chasestrafe) + immense strafing damage meant 2-3 mistakes led to deplaning.

But instead of tweaking the actual problems (there is a fuckton) and fixing the horribad UI response for god's sakes, Devs chose to butcher the entire class into a pretty WW2 themed airshow that exists purely to please surface ship players with fireworks coupled with some token damage.

And this is going to stay because WG can afford to lose dedicated CV mains and majority of playerbase actually wants to remove CV entirely or otherwise incapacitate the class to a degree that it will cause absolutely minimal or nonexistent impact to their surface ship combat.

[sahtila 95]

43 minutes ago, CompanionCav said:

The reason CV skillgap impacted outcome so much was that not because "RTS didn't work" but because mistakes were punished disproportionately.

Limited hangar + fighter lock that one can't back away (strafing out to escape rarely works if opponent knows how to chasestrafe) + immense strafing damage meant 2-3 mistakes led to deplaning.

But instead of tweaking the actual problems (there is a fuckton) and fixing the horribad UI response for god's sakes, Devs chose to butcher the entire class into a pretty WW2 themed airshow that exists purely to please surface ship players with fireworks coupled with some token damage.

And this is going to stay because WG can afford to lose dedicated CV mains and majority of playerbase actually wants to remove CV entirely or otherwise incapacitate the class to a degree that it will cause absolutely minimal or nonexistent impact to their surface ship combat.

Its sure that if there was way to keep current gameplay somehow, WG would have done that instead of spending two years(?) and lot of manhours and money to make risky, potentially wasted try for total rebuild of carrier gameplay. Tells how broken current gameplay is. Guess fixing current gameplay problems would have made it simply too dull (like tier 4-5 CV:s currently). Removing spotting ability, simplifying fighter mechanism etc etc.

7 hours ago, Assassin7 said:

I dont even think theres anything particularly wrong with the current CV mechanics.

Low tier CV's are pretty OK except their spotting ability. High tier CV:s make WoT arty look fun, balanced and fair mechanism, literally. Decent T10 CV player can prolly win against 3 ships of any other class solo, unless opponents are specialized AA cruisers.

[Crossfader 1,140]

Something about the video they showed us yesterday was bothering me, but i couldn't put my finger on it till last night...

ITS A FUCKING MOBILE GAME.

Seriously, you could play this shit on an Iphone. Tilt left and right to dodge AA, tilt forwards and back to start/cancel an attack run, press screen to drop torps/rockets/bombs and you have your special ability on screen... WG has managed to boil down "Carrier" gameplay to the most basic while still being able to say that players have influence. Your down to one squad, no fighters, very little spotting, practically no reason to ever control your carrier.

They needed to do something, CV gameplay was a special kind of cancer, but this is just... fucking making it a mobile game, i mean come the fuck on. 2 years of dev time for this shit. I guess when you dont have any real competition you can do pretty much anything. Never got into CV's and dont see myself ever getting into them.

[CompanionCav 27]

11 minutes ago, Crossfader said:

Something about the video they showed us yesterday was bothering me, but i couldn't put my finger on it till last night...

ITS A FUCKING MOBILE GAME.

Seriously, you could play this shit on an Iphone. Tilt left and right to dodge AA, tilt forwards and back to start/cancel an attack run, press screen to drop torps/rockets/bombs and you have your special ability on screen... WG has managed to boil down "Carrier" gameplay to the most basic while still being able to say that players have influence. Your down to one squad, no fighters, very little spotting, practically no reason to ever control your carrier.

They needed to do something, CV gameplay was a special kind of cancer, but this is just... fucking making it a mobile game, i mean come the fuck on. 2 years of dev time for this shit. I guess when you dont have any real competition you can do pretty much anything. Never got into CV's and dont see myself ever getting into them.

 

Now that you've said it, I remembered they do have the console version of warships being developed.

No wonder they expended so much dev hours and resources for rework; player feedback be damned, it was a foregone conclusion.

[bathoz 107]

They also have a mobile game version, (with manually aiming secondaries).

[Crossfader 1,140]

 

[tajj7 498]

It makes sense to me, as playing as the 'plane' rather than the ship in carrier terms, fits better with the rest of the game.

Current carrier gameplay is RTS, the rest of the game is not, most people are here to play a combat action game not an RTS, hence why carriers are so unpopular.

The shift looks pretty logical to me if WG want to get more people playing carriers, a tiny handful of annoyed top CV players won't matter to them. Plus I feel that a lot of these people are complaining because essentially they won't be able to club the crap out of everyone else and dominate games so easily like they currently can. 

I still see plenty of issues there, still seems to damage focused to me and they are removing fighter use/spotting etc. though I understand they don't want carriers to basically be everywhere like they are now (carriers + radar makes DD play near impossible these days IMO)

Though plenty of options for variety, attacking with different plane types, angles, aa bubbles etc. dropping from close or far to avoid AA, drop angles, fully aiming etc. 

Also don't like the unlimited planes thing, I feel like a carrier number of planes should be like their HP equivalent of ships, and that repairing/re-arming should be important not just throw away all your planes and just get a brand new squadron. 

[orzel286 236]

24 minutes ago, tajj7 said:

It makes sense to me, as playing as the 'plane' rather than the ship in carrier terms, fits better with the rest of the game.

wat?

How?

Playing dumbed down world of warplanes in world of warships is a fucking abomination that should be aborted when there's still time. This whole rework will make cancerous class that plays different game than the rest into cancerous class that plays different game than the rest. There's absolutely no progress here. Let's face it: carriers don't fit into wows and never will, just like wot arty.

[Mnemon 38]

On 9/3/2018 at 10:12 PM, Assassin7 said:

I dont even think theres anything particularly wrong with the current CV mechanics.

They have too much influence over a match. CVs may well delete people even better once the rework is done, but WG wants the days of 'CV controls the vision game with all his squadrons AND has strike potential' to die. No one on the team with some bumbling 43% shitter in his Essex/Midway/Lexington/whatever likes it when they have to face off against someone who knows how to CV and support their team. CV influence is the primary thing on the chopping block, and that's why they're changing how CVs work now.

[Crossfader 1,140]

4 hours ago, Mnemon said:

They have too much influence over a match. CVs may well delete people even better once the rework is done, but WG wants the days of 'CV controls the vision game with all his squadrons AND has strike potential' to die. No one on the team with some bumbling 43% shitter in his Essex/Midway/Lexington/whatever likes it when they have to face off against someone who knows how to CV and support their team. CV influence is the primary thing on the chopping block, and that's why they're changing how CVs work now.

I also dont think the RTS style is the problem... i think its the hyper micro management that is the problem, they need to go more towards the Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander macro management, i think that would be alot better.

[Mnemon 38]

3 hours ago, Crossfader said:

I also dont think the RTS style is the problem... i think its the hyper micro management that is the problem, they need to go more towards the Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander macro management, i think that would be alot better.

I bet that would still be too much for the majority of the playerbase, though.

[TouchFluffyTail 595]

The mere act of existing is sadly too much for large number of Wargaming's playerbase.

[Crossfader 1,140]

4 hours ago, Mnemon said:

I bet that would still be too much for the majority of the playerbase, though.

Playing HE spam Conqueror is too much.... sadly i think WG is trying to down this route and will end up only hurting the game

WoWs is a niche game that will never have a massive appeal. Better target it at the ones that will play.

[tajj7 498]

On 9/5/2018 at 12:02 PM, orzel286 said:

wat?

How?

Playing dumbed down world of warplanes in world of warships is a fucking abomination that should be aborted when there's still time. This whole rework will make cancerous class that plays different game than the rest into cancerous class that plays different game than the rest. There's absolutely no progress here. Let's face it: carriers don't fit into wows and never will, just like wot arty.

It's pretty obvious how, WOWs, WOWP, WOTs, they are all essentially the same one player controls one unit directly in a multiplayer combat game.

Current WOWs carrier gameplay is an RTS, the majority of people don't play these games to play an RTS, they go play an actual good RTS. 

The fact it's several planes not one is pretty irrelevant, they are all doing the same thing and the player is real time controlling their movements, when they fire, where they go etc. 

I've seen a few memes going about that they are basically going to destroyers in the sky that fly fast, and to be honest that is quite accurate.

That entirely makes sense if you are WG and you have a very unpopular class that barely anyone plays bar a small hardcore bunch of players. They want the masses to play the class, spend on the class, hate the class less etc.  You do that by making the class makes sense in terms of how the rest of the game works so you aren't going from your BB where you use WASD to move and a mouse to look and shoot, to another class where you look like you are playing command and conqueror and you are micro managing units and are clicking on a map.

It never made any sense in the first place to be that way, it's also why no one ever bothered being commander in BF4, people want action, not clicking on a map.

Whether you like or not is largely irrelevant cos they are clearly catering this for the casual masses as that makes the most financial sense to them. 

 

 

[Vitellius9 11]

TB flooding damage will have to be re-worked.  The almost automatic hit rate with TBs will be absurd if you flood people to death.  I can care less about the update and would gladly see them disappear.  They are certainly broken now and always have been.  One good CV player > 5 good ship players.  They pretty much have complete control of the match if your's is a dummy always.  AA is just too unreliable with how teams have to distribute and move around the game maps.  Blobbing for AA means losing on most 15v15 maps.  Even then AA is unreliable and takes too much time and the effect is mainly felt later in the match.  

CVs just don't fit into the game mechanics without being imbalanced.  I hate that they've always been way outside of the battleground, but then battle groups aren't so much a thing with chai sniping pubby BBs and such anyway.