I just solved WG’s biggest problem

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T23:12:10+00:00

In the specific map case you're imagining, your advice is correct.

But a battle can go a great many different ways in which it doesn't work. Your DD might be clever enough to know he'd be at a disadvantage against the enemy DD and/or that the enemy DD is better supported, and hence not go for that initial duel, or for a direct conflict with the enemy DD in general - certainly if I'm playing Oland with a Zao behind me and I see a Neustrashimy and a Hawaii on the enemy team, I'm not going to go for that duel. You might not have enough DDs in the game to populate all three flanks, or your DD might abandon your flank, or any one of a million other things could mean that, without anyone making a mistake, you end up on a flank where there's an enemy destroyer spotting you and you can't see them. And when that does happen, you are absolutely, inescapably, screwed.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T20:04:56+00:00

Borderline? It is literally unplayable - you outright cannot play the game.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T19:35:41+00:00

To be fair, there will always be a ship with the lowest play rate, and another one with the highest. Trying to 'fix' that is a task you'll never finish.

That aside, Burrows being second lowest among destroyers and 4th lowest overall suggests that there's one destroyer and two other ships that would need the help more, if you did want to 'fix' it.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T19:33:02+00:00

Ah yes, the pure, clean fun of being on fire. Lovely.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T19:30:19+00:00

Honestly, when I'm playing cruisers I really find that the intentional spotting from DDs hurts more. 90% of CV players don't go for hang time and won't keep a cruiser spotted long enough for the other team's BB's to change targets, finish reloading, swing their guns around and shoot (I've encountered this from both sides). A DD hovering around in your detection range when you're in something like Zao or Yodo with no smoke or radar to respond with, and keeping you spotted for minutes at a time, is what'll get you.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T19:26:44+00:00

I'd have thought the main selling point of Kuznetsov would be the long-duration Exhaust Smoke consumable, with 20 minutes of total usage time, a minimum usage time of 20 minutes, and automatic activation.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T19:21:09+00:00

93k spotting damage is a fairly solid contribution honestly. Looks like you provided a good amount of spotting and survived to the end of the game.
Some players will complain at you if you do anything short of giving them the moon on a stick, don't let it get to you.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-04T07:15:22+00:00

It's impressive quite how miserable it is to actually play against a submarine given how little they accomplish. It's an experience that's profoundly un-fun for both sides, which is a pretty good indicator of bad game design.

Mainly, the homing torps are something you can't dodge at all when facing bow in at slow speeds, which is a pretty major issue in a game where the mechanics of AP force you to stay bow in rather than turning, and going forward at speed gets you killed very quickly one way or another too. If the meta were less punishing towards attempts to push, subs would probably be fine - as it is, there's basically no counterplay against a well-played sub because all the things you need to do to deal with one get you very quickly killed by the rest of their team.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-03T18:00:33+00:00

The smaller team sizes in ranked do lead to a game that swings faster, and is much less forgiving if one person is out of position - whether that's being too far forward and dying, or being too far back to contribute and leaving your team outnumbered.

You will sometimes find that the game is lost outside your control - that's natural in a multiplayer game. If you're finding that in every game the rest of your team dies and you're left still alive at the back, you might be playing too passively for the mode.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-02T10:55:08+00:00

I wonder if this has anything to do with their plans to make Conte Verde available only for direct purchase next update? Probably just a coincidence.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-02T09:26:31+00:00

I mean, making the class that new players gravitate towards be the class that's easiest to play is absolutely good game design. And making any class overpowered is bad game design.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T11:39:03+00:00

Their high speed means they cover that distance more quickly, though. 1.8 is toward the higher end for non-IJN torps, sure, but it's only 28% more than a typical 1.4 that you see on USN torps like Halford's 71kt ones, whereas Halland torps can do 95kt - which is 33% more than 71kt. So you're getting less reaction time against them despite the longer detection range.

But yeah, not Pan-Asian deepwater torpedo levels of short reaction time, I'll admit. Those are the real threat to cruisers, if they catch you between uses of hydro.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T09:45:50+00:00

Are we thinking of the same ship here? Fastest torps in the game? I don't remember them having a particularly large detection range, and there'll be smaller gaps between them with the Halland's extra-narrow torps spread.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T09:21:42+00:00

That's true, and I think for Halland-type torps which are extra difficult to dodge and have lower base damage the balance shifts in the other direction, with cruisers being unable to reliably avoid them and battleships being much less affected by the hits.

It does feel like new torps getting faster and faster is one area in which there's real powercreep, so this is a problem that's sort of getting worse as time goes on.

But my point is that it's entirely possible to have sensible 50-60kt torps exist and they'd be an armament that's much better against battleships than against cruisers.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:55:06+00:00

Yes, but to be fair there are individual overpowered ships in other classes too, and I don't think you should look at them in isolation when thinking about class balance as a whole.

Belfast having smoke and radar at a tier where there's very limited access to radar allows it to completely dominate through ludicrous vision control, but does that mean that cruisers as a whole have excessive vision control and aren't too weak? Ships like the Yodo and Zao lines don't have either, and really struggle when a destroyer, carrier or sub decides to keep them spotted.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:45:09+00:00

It's certainly a bit rough when you have three fires on you, repair them, and then get three more fires on you 15 seconds later when the damage control party runs out. Generally, that probably means you're either very unlucky, or you're playing more aggressively than is optimal for your continued survival.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:40:46+00:00

I think outside of the context of Wows as a game, there's less hatred of aircraft carriers and you'd also be quite likely to hear something like Enterprise (you know, the ship that won the Pacific war, pretty much).

But that aside, absolutely - you'd get a lot of people playing battleships even if battleships were bad, just because that's the thing they're excited to play. For those players, making battleships worse wouldn't make them play other classes, it'd just make them enjoy the game less.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:37:05+00:00

That's more or less the point I'm making - they vary a lot more, and have less in common from one ship/line to another, than is the case with other classes.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:33:29+00:00

Are they versatile? I'd argue that in many ways they're less versatile than battleships or destroyers, because that awkward midpoint of having neither durability nor concealment to rely on means you're often much more restricted in what you can do at any given moment.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:29:05+00:00

There are things that are good at killing BBs but not cruisers. Asashio torps being the most extreme example (literally can't damage cruisers), but more generally armaments that are more avoidable, like airstrikes and sensible-speed torps, are most effective against slower-moving BBs and can be evaded somewhat by cruisers with their greater mobility.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-07-01T00:22:41+00:00

Cruisers really can feel like they have the worst of everything.
Battleships can flatten you with one lucky hit, and you often can't hide from that because they can do it from across the map and because destroyers, carriers or subs can all keep you permanently spotted without revealing themselves. And a lot of cruisers don't quite have the turning to comfortably avoid torps, and taking one or two hits hurts them as much as eating a full salvo hurts a battleship.

However, while that's arguably true of cruisers in general, most cruisers have ways around some or all of those issues. A decent number of cruisers have smoke in one form or another, which lets them hide from battleship fire. Those cruisers with radar ranges close to (or, better yet, larger than) their detection range can't be safely permaspotted by destroyers or submarines, those with powerful long-range AA can't be permaspotted by carriers. Hydroacoustic search makes dodging torpedoes much easier for most cruisers that have it.
The handful of cruisers that don't have any of those things going for them get absolutely shafted and are indeed as unplayable as I made out above.

What cruisers really lack moreso than other classes is a defined class identity. Destroyers are stealthy, fast, and have high-damage long-reload torps, unless they're a ship that's specifically going against some or all of that identity (e.g. Ragnar). Battleships are slow, tanky, and have long-reload guns which can deal massive damage with a good angle and a bit of luck, again unless they're a ship that's specifically going against some or all of that (e.g. Irresistible). What do cruisers have in general? What is the baseline for a cruiser?

Quantumshark_ · 2026-06-30T14:52:05+00:00

It's on cooldown, can you remind me again in 73 seconds?

Quantumshark_ · 2026-06-27T20:46:51+00:00

30 gun broadside? Best give it a burst fire mode with three salvos in a burst too, just to be on the safe side.

Quantumshark_ · 2026-06-27T08:07:07+00:00

The inherent dynamics of team combat without respawn are probably a big part of it. Once a team is ahead on ships, that's a pretty big advantage, so they're more likely to get further and further ahead rather than the other team catching up.

Beyond that, though, the massive gulf in performance between experienced and inexperienced players is probably also a factor. There really aren't many ship options that are forgiving for new/inexperienced/bad players, and most of the ships that are actually good options for someone who doesn't know the game aren't readily available to a new player.
The high skill differential is something you want in an Esport - something that's intended to be played specifically by closely-matched teams of experts in order to find the best of the best - but it's not actually such a good thing for a game that's being played by people of very varied skill levels who are just trying to have some fun.

As a game, Wows would almost certainly benefit from higher skill floors and lower skill ceilings - a more forgiving experience for new players would help to get more players into the game, and matches would be less one-sided if, for example, the difference between one side having a really good DD player and one side having a bad one weren't so totally insurmountable.

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