(EU)
Q: Hi /u/Sub_Octavian,
first of all I would just like to say thank you! I really think it’s awesome that you come here and do these QnAs on reddit, especially as I am led to belive you do it in your free time, I hope WGEU knows how lucky they are to have you.
I would like to know if WG is working any new ribbons?
You have mentioned here that spotting xp is earned by spotting an enemy for a teammate who doesn’t have line of sight on him. (also that everyone who is spotting him get equal xp).
Wouldn’t it be possible to have a ribbon for every 1k or 5k damage that is caused by your spotting?
And also maybe a ribbon for the first person who spots an enemy ship? So there would be 12 per side to get.
Perhaps give dds an xp boost for these ribbons (or all classes), because at the moment I feel dds are hard done by in xp gain and you are very reliant on getting torpedo hits. It might also help combat the very passive gameplay we have, by teaching players early on that getting up and into the battle is a reward in itself.
A: Oh, thanks, but, as these Q&A were success lately, now it’s a part of my team job – to do Q&A here and an all servers from time to time. So don’t worry about free time anymore – we are here, and we will pop up every 1-2 months:)
As for your question, and community-driven UI improvements in general, right now we’re finalizing HAS and Radar circles on minimap – which was proposed here on Reddit a couple of months ago, as far as I remember. Then, we will discuss several more things, like spotting ribbon and maybe even spotting damage/potential damage counters.
However, I must ask for your patience, because such things (unfortunately) involve two most busy teams – UI and Game Logic. Almost every new feature requires these guys support, so they have a long queue of tasks, many of which are of highest priority (like Clan Battles).
Surely you can just not bother with this reasoning, but hey, this is how it works, so I really hope you understand:)
To sum up, your UI suggestion is good and we’re thinking about it as well.
Economy is not and shouldn’t be tied to ribbons directly, but it is balanced around the same game events. DDs, by the way, are already given some boost for spotting withing economic balancing in 0.6.7.
Cheers!
Sub Q: Thank you so much for the answer. Also it’s good to know you are getting paid for this awesome service.
However, I must ask for your patience, because such things (unfortunately) involve two most busy teams
I’m british, so I queue to be in a queue, so don’t worry I can wait.
Economy is not and shouldn’t be tied to ribbons directly, but it is balanced around the same game events. DDs, by the way, are already given some boost for spotting withing economic balancing in 0.6.7.
By economy do you also mean xp gain? or just credits? What I meant was that DDs seem to be lower down in team rankings at the end (Sidenote: I am CL main).
What I meant was, I feel as if DD who is doing well for his team, (you know spotting and smoking) doesn’t really get any feedback at the moment from the game that he/she is contributing to the team if his torps keep missing. And ribbons would help negate this.
But I think you understood, I’m just crap at explaining things.
Thanks again for the answer.
PS: you don’t have to reply to this 🙂
Sub A: No, your explanation is good, and I argee that we need more in-battle feedback, and we will work on it:)
By economy I normally mean both credits and XP.
Cheers!
Q:1) is that you in the pic? ;p ( there was some handsome chick , Sub_octavian posted her XD)
2) is it addressed in any way, that the Graf Zeppelin has carapults? Like planes starting from the catapults instead of rolling on the deck. Or with a faster plane starting time? Because of the time at her initial commission date, she would have been the only carrier with 2 catapults and where planes could start and land at the same time. Which would give her a advantage over others who were just floating decks.
A: 1.Nah, that’s the reason I am still sane and happy 😀
2. Not now, but I can say that she’s WIP, and we are still playing around with different options. Your suggestion is interesting, we will consider it. Thanks!
Q: For smoke, why not give bb penalty of being spotted only while not affecting smoke and other ships?
A: Because BBs are not the only problem. Crowds and IFHE are problematic too. We considered what you suggest, and it won’t work.
Q: Hey Sub_Octavian, welcome back.
I’d like to address some perceived issues I have about the Commander skill tree. In my opinion, some skills are making it hard for you to balance ships.
IFHE is too good on CA’s with 152-155mm guns. The main weakness of the lower caliber is gone, and they enjoy penetration values similar to 200+mm guns, while only suffering a small penalty to fire chance. I feel this strength is too overpowered on certain CA’s, for example, Belfast or Kutuzov. What’s the point of playing a 203mm CA now if a 152mm CA can output more damage with their faster firing guns?
For example, Kutuzov guns have 8s reload, 12 barrels, and 26400 alpha damage per salvo, for a total of 224,400 potential DPM.
Atago on the other hand, reloads in 16s, 10 barrels, 33000 alpha salvo damage, and 158,000 potential DPM.
Looking at the numbers, it’s clear Kutuzov with IFHE, while having the same penetration values as Atago, will clearly do much more damage to armored targets. IFHE basically removed the one weakness of lower caliber guns, and thus unlocked their full DPM value whereas prior to this, some of your shells would shatter and thus the DPM would be similar to a cruiser with higher caliber guns.
Of course, this isn’t even considering all the other things Kutuzov has like 19.1km range, smoke, and good anti-air.
Before IFHE, cruisers were differentiated well- CL’s with 152-155mm guns would shoot more rapidly, but be less effective against armored targets and better against less armored targets (like DD’s or other CA’s), whereas 203mm CA’s were slower firing, but heavy alpha damage and more effective versus BB’s. Now it’s simply the case that a CL does everything better than a CA, which simply doesn’t make sense.
Are you all looking into this?
A: Yes. We have slightly different view on that, but overall, yes, that’ll be addressed along with smoke change. We don’t mind IFHE current efficiency, but we would like to make IFHE camping less efficient.
Q: Here’s some idea for smoke: increase shell dispersion while firing from smoke, the higher the caliber the higher the dispersion
or just make smoke unable to hide a BB unless it is dead center or reveal BBs that fire, just don’t disperse the smoke for other classes or give them that same mechanic
A: Dispersion debuffs won’t prevent most players from camping in smoke. People tend to choose the safest way, in shooters they will camp with sniper rifle when the real need is to push, the same pattern is sitting in smoke. All this results in is more frustration. The same issue was with firing range a couple of years ago – some players asked us to leave the ability to constantly shoot at max ranges, just with bad dispersion, but in the end we cut the ranges and introduced spotter plane. There is no need to give people crap weapon, hoping they won’t use it – they will, and blame you for it being crappy:) This is why I hope we will remove/rework Shima 20km torps eventually, and I strongly believe it will even buff her stats a bit.
We have the plan how to update the declined 1st version so it hits the goal without hurting those players/ships we don’t want to hurt. We’re implementing this plan right now, and I believe it has all chances to be final – but we’ll see.
Other mechanics, including your proposal, were considered before and after 1st version tests – believe me, this idea is not rushed. For now, the initial mechanics is the best option, but with some meaningful tuning and tweaking.
Q: Are there any changes for credits in Tier X matches? Just yesterday I had a game with 200k dmg in my G. Kurfurst and i still lost credits. I even run 20% cost reduction and increased credits flags. It’s ridiculous that you lose so much credits without premium gear.
A: Playing on TX without premium time / premium camo is tough by design, and always was, but anyways, there were no changes that could really affect this, and all, even minor economy changes are added to patch notes.
I would say if you really think you are getting more normally, with the same conditions, check out other things. Absolute damage is not as important in rewards as relative damage, and there are also additional activities that have big importance, like capping and tanking. Not everything revolves around absolute damage, it’s just one of the metrics that is nice to compare and boast, but it does not directly make your team win.
Cheers!
Q: When can we expect the RN BBs to be released? i have tried to find this in the questions already but there was nothing coming up. I feel like these have been coming since Christmas now and were in August with no sign of them. I have played against or with about 50 of them in battles now sailed by Testers etc. and im sure they were due in July?
A: We are finalizing them, and I think they will be released in one of the very nearest updates. We took our time, tested different features and loadouts, listened to testers and to the community. For now, the line looks very good. No cruiser consumables, decent AP, good HE, good concealment and heal on top tiers, slightly better (Warspite-like) heal on all other tiers, and yes, the gun choice on Conqueror – this is what the line may bring:) I ask you for a bit of patience – the official announcement and release are really near.
Q: I wonder why WG ended up using the name “Jack Dunkirk” in the end. At one point they actually said (I think on the NA site) that the event captain would be William Tennant. But I guess they decided they wanted Yamamoto to be the first official historical commander.
A: Legal issues. We managed to retrieve permission for Yamamoto, but did not manage to do it for Dunkirk:( It can be surprisingly hard.
Q: Then why not use Vanguard at T8 since every argument you’ve just used for Sharnhorst applies equally to her?
A: We have other plans for Vanguard:)
Q: Why don’t fire directors get camo applied?
A: Technical reasons. As you probably know, ship models consist of many misc objects (including directors) and camo is being applied semi-automatially, so, there are some tech limitations that prevent us from painting directors, including peformance issues. They can be solved by changing 3d content file structure, but right now, the priority is very low for that. Sorry for inconvenience.
Q: Great drone footage, love it.
Was it hard to get permission to fly close to those warships with a drone? I could imagine that it isnt something that anyone could do in private (at least not without the ship testing some AA on it and some consequences for the owner).
A: Well, that footage was from the rehearsal, and the conditions were much easier than on actual parade. Of course the footage and especially the drones were approved. However, one of the drone was lost 😀 Probably due to very close proximity to the ship.
Q: what does VMF actually mean out of interest?
A: Военно-морской флот = ВМФ = VMF – simply navy, but in a “battle sea fleet” form.
Q: I still call BS on the “Nelson is too strange for regular players, so we make it a premium”.
WHY can’t you JUST make it as an alternative grind ? You did it on WoT for more than one tank (Ferdinand/JP2 is the best example, one is historical, the second is a prototype), that NEVER caused any issue. Just make it so that QE can grind both Nelson and KGV, and if that really is an issue for you, make Nelson 50k XP more expensive. Only players motivated by her would grind her, the other would get the KGV by default, and most players in this game go by the “default” option.
And why is having a different ship an issue anyway ? We already have Warspite and Hood as premium, Hood even already sitting in the tier 7 bracket. Now you want Nelson/Rodney as premium, and you’ll likely follow with Vanguard in tier 8 ? I really can’t call anything but BS at that. Or at least just admit you want money.
A: You may call whatever you want, that’s your right, however, now you are trying to invent a way to squeeze Nelson into the line, without listening to argument. You are ready to make accusations just to validate your point. That’s a way to nowhere.
I will say it one last time.
- We don’t want to create another Izumo precedent and don’t want to create a pointless 1 ship sub-branch. Gameplay first.
- Nelson is a fine ship, but won’t go good with general audience gameplay-wise, thus, the access to her will be limited in some way.
- We are still discussing a way to release it. All community opinions on that were heard and we are truly taking them into consideration.
I know this is important topic for you guys, so I promise I or someone from the team will update you as soon as we have the final decision. This should happen just in a next few days, most likely, even tomorrow.
We’re on it, we know you care about this ship, and we will do our best to find a good solution.
Sorry for inconvenience, and see you very soon 
Q: So british BBs lost their radar and defAA. Good. Lets keep them like this.
A: Yep, that’s pretty much confirmed, I doubt we are going to test any other loadouts. The line looks good and ready for battle.
