
Shepbur, on 08 May 2015 - 05:31 PM, said:
With 0.3.1 fast approaching, we thought it was about time that you all could get your hands on a little more information on the patch to clear some of the speculation away and give you a good idea about what the patch will really bring to the game!
This thread will give you a good overview of the feel of the new patch, some information about some of the new features coming in, as well as opinions from the European Super Testers regarding the gameplay of the new ships and how their introduction may affect the game during 0.3.1!
1.0 – American Battleships
1.1 – Japanese Aircraft Carriers
1.2 – The Furutaka and Izumo
1.3 – Changes to Armour and Penetration Mechanics
1.4 – Achievements and Signal Flags
1.5– Hotspot – The new map!
1.0 – American Battleships
At long last, the American Battleships are arriving into the game! This is something a lot of you have been waiting for for a very long time, and i'm sure you won't be disappointed! The ships which will be cresting the horizon into the game are the South Carolina, the Wyoming, the New York, the New Mexico, the Colorado, the North Carolina, the Iowa, and the Montana.
All of these ships (save the Montana) were built, and used during WWII in a variety of ways, and many went through several re-fits throughout their service life. But i'm sure you've all been looking into, or read on the forums about their histories, what you want to know is what it's going to be like to play them! Well...
USS Iowa
The South Carolina is the first American battleship you'll come across when you head into 0.3.1. She's a Tier 3, having been researched up from the Chester down at Tier 2. She has 8 12” guns set in 4 separate turrets, giving her roughly the same abilities in terms of firepower compared to the Kawachi. Additionally, the two ships have a similar thickness of armour around the ship as a whole, with the South Carolina having a little more on average than the Kawachi. As a result, her speed suffers slightly, however with a slightly better turning radius, this loss can be easily forgotten about.
To compare the gameplay of the two ships is rather simple due to their large similarities, the two ships excel in the similar situations, both ships preferring to sit in medium-close range brawls where their armour and raw firepower can keep dealing damage to their enemies as their large health pools soak up any damage they take.
The Wyoming is the next battleship you will see along the tech tree at Tier 4. This ship follows suite somewhat from her older sister, and at the same time begins to define the low-mid tier battleships of the American lines. The Wyoming also carries 12” guns, however unlike the South Carolina, she's able to carry 12 of them, instead of just 8. This sets her apart from her Japanese rival the Myogi in terms of raw firepower, with her being able to deal almost double the maximum AP damage. This extreme increase in firepower comes at a large cost however, her guns have a comparatively short range, and weigh the ship down, making her a slow and easy target for a good captain. This being said however, the Wyoming's able to make extremely tight-turns where needed, and has a great detectability range.
Her play-style is similar to that of the South Carolina, preferring close-quarter duels, where her range and inaccuracies don't let her down, and her speed is less essential. This being said, she's a great match up for the Myogi, and more often than not, the Myogi captain will wind up standing on his bridge wondering where it all went so wrong as his trouser legs become uncomfortably damp for the 2nd time of the day!
Following up from the Wyoming, the New York is no less impressive, wielding 10 14” guns, across 5 turrets, the design and play-style of the American Battleships become pretty clear! Yet again, her speed and MC battery ranges let her down a little, but are well balanced by her great detectability range, armour and turning circle. While she struggles somewhat against the first “modern” battleship of the Japanese – the Kongo, she's still got large enough teeth to have a good fight against her rival.
At tier 6, the New Mexico class appears, moving from double-gun turrets, to triple gun ones. She holds onto 12 14” guns, she's able to hold her own with thick belt armour, great deck armour, and good detectability. While she continues across with the poor range, this doesn't affect her abilities too much as she's more than able to deal out the extra punishment when your target finally gets into range. Her play-style is similar to that of HMS Warspite, and her increased firepower often allow her to get one over in a 1-on-1 fight more often than not!
These traits continue through to the Colorado at Tier 7, while she's a very slow ship, she's able to defend herself against attacking ships with her 8 16” guns. The Colorado is the first American ship which truly shows it's AA supremacy compared to the Japanese counterparts, with almost double the AA abilities, attacking aircraft become less of a problem, however a result of the increased ranges of battle, and the improvements of enemy ships, the traditional American Battleship style begins to truly show it's flaws, and she can often struggle in defending herself against multiple enemies.
Tier 8 shows a new dawn for American battleships, with the introduction of the North Carolina. This strongly departs from the play-style of previous tiers, with 3 fast-turning 16” triple gun turrets she's able to throw a lot of rounds across large ranges. Her speed has also greatly increased, jumping up to a top speed of 28knots, while maintaining a good turning circle. The North Carolina's play-style moves from close-medium range engagements, to engagements around 15-18km being preferable. While still not built purely for long-range combat, she's more than capable of holding her own against ships of her tier.
Moving on to Tier 9 and 10, the Iowa and Montana appear. These two ships have very similar designs and play-styles, with the Iowa mounting 9 16” guns, and the Montana, 12 16” guns. They're capable of reaching up to a range of 27km given the right equipment, and are bristling with AA guns. These ships are truly forces to be reckoned with at high tiers, and have large amounts of deck armour to defend them against long-range fire (up to 150mm in some areas!). They are easily able to hold their own against equally-tiered ships, and are very well balanced against the existing Japanese battleships to give unique, yet fair gameplay opportunities for their captains.
1.1 – Japanese Aircraft Carriers
So both carrier trees have changed, a lot actually. The American carriers have taken up a mostly air-superiority oriented role, focusing on fighter squadrons with dive-bombers as the main damage source. The Japanese carriers decided to take up a mostly strike oriented role, focused upon taking down enemy battleships and cruisers.
Hiryu & Shokaku
Let’s start with the Japanese carriers, because that’s what everyone wants to know right? Japanese carriers start from Tier IV, beginning with the Hosho being researched out of the Kawachi, the Tier III Japanese battleship. Japanese carriers take up a strike role compared to the American carriers. They will have a universal stock setup like you find on American carriers now, with an all-round plane load-out. The specialized setups will focus on strike setups with dive- and torpedo-bombers, and an upgrade that adds a single squadron to the mix of the stock setup, this upgrade starts appearing from Tier VI, Ryujou and onwards. The Japanese carriers will not have an air superiority focused load out.
Japanese carrier squadrons will have fewer planes than their American counterparts, making them worse in a 1v1 fight, they will pretty much always lose. Which means that Japanese planes are designed to take down hostile bombers, as they have a larger amount of bullets and will be able to take out more than a single squadron of American planes with a single loadout. Japanese carriers have the ability to churn out a sustained strike with their shortened prep-time for squadrons and shorter launch windows. This gives the Japanese carriers an advantage for short-range, high-risk carrier warfare.
American Carriers on the other hand, get an all-round stock setup that throughout the whole tree will have 1 squadron of each, with either an air superiority upgrade or a strike upgrade, this. The stock setups until Tier VI will appear somewhat underwhelming, consisting of a single fighter squadron with a single torpedo-squadron as anti-ship support, but will manage to attain air superiority at the cost of strike capabilities.
The air superiority deck upgrades are similar to the ones we have right now, they consist of fighters and dive-bombers. The strike upgrade focuses more upon the dive bombers than the torpedo-bombers.
But, you're giving Americans useless dive-bombers? Yes! But they will no longer be useless! Dive-bombers get a buff regarding damage output! They will now have a maximum damage of 15k, with realistically doing around ~4k damage per bomb hit. At early tiers their automatic drop is still manageable but when you hit Tier VI/VII you better start using manual drops. Carriers that manage to pull off proper manual drops will be able to fend off enemy cruisers and destroyers better than before.
So about carrier matchups, lets have a look at the Essex versus the Taiho, the Essex in a stock setup has 2/1/1 (Fighters/Torp/Dive), while the Taiho gets a 2/2/2 setup. These are not so dissimilar, but shows the strike gameplay of Japanese carriers compared to the America's air superiority role. The upgrades for the Essex are 3/0/2 or 0/2/3 compared to the Taiho’s 2/3/3 or 0/4/3 setups. This wouldn't mean that the Essex would always win in this matchup. The Taiho has way more planes than the Essex can handle with his fighter setup, and luring enemy fighters to cruiser and battleship firing solutions might give the Japanese captain the upper hand.
High-tier fights are all nice, but what about the lower tiers, say for example the new Bogue versus the Zuiho? The Bogue is a small, hard to hit escort carrier, one step up from the Langley. Adding more fighters in the hangar but retaining the same amount of active squadrons. She’s quite a change from the previous Tier V, the Independence, which has now become a Tier VI. The Zuiho is like black and white against the Bogue. A slightly larger but more invisible carrier carrying a 1/2/1 loadout that focuses on strike capability. Both sides will learn how to best handle the other nation’s carriers best on this tier. With the Bogue learning how to defend friendly ships while creating small strikes to damage the enemy ships, and the Zuiho learning to avoid getting shot down, while taking down enemy capital ships.
1.2 – The Furutaka and Izumo
It's not just the Japanese Carriers and American Battleships which have been introduced in this patch! We can now finally see the Tier 5 IJN cruiser and Tier 9 IJN Battleship, the Furutaka and the Izumo!
The Furutaka is a rather odd-looking ship compared to almost all others in the game up to this point, She carries 6 8” guns, across 6 turrets in addition to 6 torpedoes (3 a side). This, in combination with the traditional IJN cruiser traits in the game so far (slower turning turrets, but bigger guns), makes her a rather frustrating ship to play. She can sometimes struggle with lining up a target in her sights due to her slow turret traverse and longer reload times, however when she does land hits, they hit hard. This results in a play-style which favours longer-range combat to a degree, but is still challenging for the captain to pull a victory out from an out-numbered engagement which may be possible in other ships of the class.
Furutaka
The Izumo again, is a first in terms of design philosophy in the game. Carrying 3 16" triple gun turrets at the front of the ship, the Izumo is best used in an offensive, attacking role, allowing her to use her full firepower and armour to her advantage. This unfortunately doesn't agree too well with her over-all abilities, and when forced to turn away and retreat, the lack of rear-facing turrets, and poor manoeuvrability can often be the downfall of the ship. This being said, she's still a dangerous opponent to face, and shouldn't be ignored by any accounts in combat due to her great firepower!
1.3 – Changes to Armour and Penetration Mechanics
One area of the update which has been rather over-looked is the changes to armour and shell penetration mechanics. What may have appeared to be a minor change to the game, with rather large uncertainties, has proved to be rather a large change to how tactics and armoured ships play out!
For all those battleship lovers who often sit at ranges of 10-15km lobbing shells at each other, this is going to have a massive impact on your abilities! AP shells are now a lot more likely to “bounce” and ricochet off your enemies armour if they're angled correctly. This is most noticeable when crossing the “T” of the enemy, with the targeted ship often bouncing 4/5 of the hits off their hull and deck armour at low ranges where the shells hit armour at extreme angles. These changes have been introduced in such a way that even turning your ship to cause it to list at the right angle can mean the difference between a 10k damage penetrating hit, and a 0 damage bounce! And will result in a massive bonus in damage saved by more experienced players who learn to use these mechanics to their advantage in the more heavily armed battleships.
Shell types have also been reworked, with AP shells causing less damage to lightly-armed ships, and HE damage causing more consistent and useful damage against ships who's armour stops the penetration of most shells.
Citadels and Magazines have also been re-worked to an extent in this patch, as it's now not as rare to see an enemy destroyer blow up from a lucky shot into their magazines, causing 7-8k damage from a single shell – something that was nearly un-heard of before this patch! However unfortunately, you're all going to have to wait for amazing pyrotechnics to be introduced to really show off the extent of the explosion...
1.4 – Achievements and Signal Flags
This is a completely new addition for the game, giving achievements for various events in random battles, as well as special “Signal Flags” which can grant the user bonuses when they're used in battle!
Achievements are gained by players when they achieve a specific feat in a random battle. These achievements range from shooting down 30 or more enemy aircraft, winning the battle after standing alone against 4 or more enemy ships, or even just for getting blown up in a single shot! Giving you a range of achievements to strive for in the battles. To add to their value, certain achievements give you a reward of a set of signal flags which can be used across any of your ships. These flags give various bonuses (often relating to the counterpart achievements which you gained them from), for example one flag can grant you -20% time required to put out a fire, or give +50% experience gained for the battle in which it was used!
Now you may be thinking that that's a little unfair, but it can normally average out pretty well! It's currently pretty difficult to get too many of the flags and achievements at once, and atop of that, you're only given a limited number of flags which are used up each battle. Requiring you to go out and earn the achievements again before you can throw the flags back onto your ships! This does however mean, that you're going to tend to use the flags for special battles, either for extra rewards and less risk for the first victory of the day or special events, or even just save them all up for future team or clan-wars battles to get the most from your ships!
1.5 – Hotspot - the new map!
Hotspot is a brand new map which is being introduced for tiers 7 and above. It's a rather large map, sitting on a similar scale to that of North, however it's design makes the gameplay much faster and more aggressive than any other map in the game.
Hotspot, looking North West
Teams spawn in the corners of the map apart from each other (i.e. Team 1 in the NW and SE, and Team 2 in the NE and SW), with the encounter cap circle in the middle of the map. In the east, there are large numbers of small islands, giving a great place for destroyers to battle it out and claim victories over unwary cruisers and battleships who are trying to manoeuvre round the corners, while in the south and north of the map and larger islands and more open water, giving a space for battleship shoot-outs to occur. The cap circle helps draw in both teams to the centre of the map, keeping the action in 1 place and allowing for good teamwork, skill and situational awareness to help win the battle.
The domination gamemode gives similar gameplay, with 5 cap circles, allowing both teams to claim 2 cap circles from the start of the game with ease, before battling over the 5th central cap point. The zones on this map only give 2 points per second, to stop the counter from running too quickly, but still give the cap circles enough potential to win the game for the enemy if your team neglects them!
The one major downside of this map, is it's spawn locations, in particularly for Aircraft Carriers. While the design of the map gives great gameplay for the other classes who want to get into combat as quickly as possible, carriers can often find themselves with nowhere to hide, and then nowhere to run to! This results in carriers gameplay on the map being rather defensive, yet still essential, as air-cover is required for the rest of their team, as well as their aircraft to go and help spot enemy destroyers and cruisers hiding in-amongst the islands!
I hope this gives you all a good idea of what to expect as a player in the upcoming patch in terms of changes in gameplay and ships! A special word of thanks goes out to Exodude who wrote up all the info regarding the new Aircraft Carriers being added to the game!