Questions about karma system and the oddity of IJN BBs

[mr_glitchy_R]

1. Can anyone explain what is karma system and what it does?

2. I found that Japanese battleship AP and HE shells has some oddity in it. When a CL angled, i could citadel it easily. But when they are showing their broadside, it always overpen. This kind of things also happened when i aimed at carriers. I don't know how is that possible because back then citadelling any kind of ships were much easier. Did WG just change the penetration mechanic in IJN BBs so that CL gameplay will be much more convenient?

[Thyaliad]

1) Karma doesn't do anything. It is just a number on top of your name in your profile page. When somebody complements you in-game, that number goes up. When somebody reports you, that number goes down. That's it - just a feel good/feel bad system.

2) Probably citadel overpens. That happens because the target's armour is too thin to arm the AP shells so the shells simply pass through the citadel and an overpen occurs. When they angle, the effective armour increases to the point where it is thick enough to arm the fuses in the AP shells and cause the shell to explode inside the citadel. It is not just limited to IJN BBs, I notice this very often in my French BBs too. But really all BBs are affected by this, some less than an others depending on their AP shell fuse times, and the target they are shooting at of course. This happens a lot against low-tier CVs too, because their armour is simply too thin. Heck, you can even HE-citadel low tier CVs.

[HobartAWD]

1) Karma is pointless and has no tangible effect on you or your gameplay other than to make you feel better. (or worse if you care about negative Karma) Just a number that reflects how many times you have been complimented or reported.

Play the game to the best of your ability. Always try to play positive towards a win for your team and don't care what others think about you.

 

2) It is not limited to just IJN BB shells. Several patches ago a big change was made to shell penetration mechanics. WG really glossed over the details as the description WG gave was extremely vague along the lines of "enhanced the interaction of shells and armour". 

General consensus after the change was that citadels were harder to come by and you saw more weird over pens and the like. CL are still easy to delete, at least when I am sailing in one anyway.

 

[icy_phoenix]

If you have 100+ karma you get 3 more reports / complements. That's it

[Serazahar]

If I remember correctly, if you get reported for miscommunication etc while you have 0 karma, you are very likely to get chat banned temporarily.