A discussion about Aircraft Carriers, simply to gain WG's attention at some point with Carrier topics and have them balanced

[LeTrashMammal]

First post, simply because i have finally reached that point where I am so fed up with carriers that I am actually making a post.

This post will be primarily referring to the capabilities of T6-10 warships and carriers. 

The primary point which i will be attempting to address is the durability of Aircraft

Power Creep (specifically referring to the AA power of cruisers and how carriers have far surpassed them)

Cruisers, before the CV balance, were renowned for their AA capabilities, specifically with the AA defence consumable being able to decimate entire squadrons of like-tier aircraft and disperse incoming attacks from higher-tier aircraft. That is practically non-existent at this point. 

simply put, the AA defense of all ships has been surpassed by the power-creep of carriers and their aircraft:

• The new way in which aircraft take damage by spreading it out equally amongst each plane makes it to that, in order to shoot down a single plane, you must deal damage near-equal-to/surpassing the total HP of all aircraft in a squadron or detachment because of how it is spread which almost never happens because a detachment of aircraft or even the entire squadron usually dis-appear and become invincible before you can deal enough damage for the spreading of damage to knock out one of the planes. those planes may be damaged to the point of falling apart at the seams but that all means nothing if it survives and gets recycled into another squadron. 
• Cruisers are only able to reliably knock out aircraft with the DAAF consumable and sector reinforcement combined, otherwise even the reinforcement isn't even near enough to make any meaningful impact on AA defence. This basically requires for DAAF in order to make any impact on a CV temporarily (because remember, they can regen aircraft now). 
• Any ship without DAAF has practically no AA ability since IF (A BIT IF) you shoot down an aircraft, by the time a carrier cycles though their squadron that aircraft is regenerated and ready to roll again.
• AA gun placement durability, when considered with how powerful carriers have become even at the beginning of the game, just makes CVs all the more powerful. the points above were in the context of having full durability on your AA placements, the power of CVs is increased exponentially with AA placement degradation overtime, making any hope of shooting down any aircraft after taking a match-worth of incoming fire from other warships and aircraft attack misplaced. Just the fact that AA defence dies off over time is enough to make carriers overpowered with the balancing since a carrier can regenerate any shot down aircraft and can only get stronger as the match goes on and ships lose their AA placements which can't regenerate.
• The captain perk for reducing incoming damage from AA defences is THE ONLY perk/consumable/equipment/flag/anything-in-the-game which directly reduces incoming damage (with the exception of the ramming flag).  That fact alone is scary and ridiculous for obvious reasons...if it isn't obvious then just think to yourself if and other warship were able to equip something or have a captain skill which directly reduces the damage from incoming fire by 10% and see how much of a necessity it would become. This also begs the question of why isn't there a way to directly decrease the damage done by aircraft or torpedoes or why not even shell damage whilst we're at it? one might argue "well it isn't reducing the damage which a CV directly takes" but those aircraft ARE the cv, the means by which it deals damage.
• Catapult fighters and aircraft-dropped fighters are a gamble. The AI of both is simply broken, it takes a while just for the damned things to start following an aircraft and attack it and the speed at which AA aircraft move is just ridiculous. I find that my catapult fighters work 33% of the time, usually I'll launch them, they'll fly for a few seconds then they're start to follow the aircraft which just striked and are about to dissapear, then follow the next one and be near-useless. AA aircraft, on the rare occasion that a carrier does drop them to defend you will follow the same pattern and be a gamble half the time. oh and not to mention that AA aircraft can be shot down by the strike aircraft's rear gunner, for some reason, AA aircraft have severely lower HP than the strike aircraft themselves and just die after a few seconds of persuit if you're unlucky which, for battleships, renders your only form of substantial AA defense useless.

I didn't feel the need to mention Battleships or destroyers often in the above points because of how useless they are at AA defence, just think of the above points but worse because of lower overall AA damage. poor, poor destroyers

I also feel the need to say that I know that some of the points above were present before the balancing (such as AA gun degradation) but i think you will agree that the gameplay effects of such things are "from a past age" so to speak, they were fine prior to the rework but now due to the nature of carriers (specifically referring to aircraft regen) and their aircraft, they have been grotesquely exaggerated in how they benefit carriers and make life a living hell for other ships.

The fact that carriers can only be countered by particular cruisers since not all cruisers can carry DAAF is just idiocy, they should be counter-able by ALL CRUISERS and by certain battleships as a carrier can infinitely attack and be invulnerable to direct return fire (if they're not stupid) and don't deserve (by virtue of not taking direct damage in return) to be countered by more ships or EVERY ship for that matter due to that single virtue of being able to attack ANY SHIP ON THE MAP without taking return fire

In conjunction with the above point, as it stands now a carrier can deal equal or superior damage than an equal-tiered battleship or cruiser which is just ridiculous since they cannot be damaged in return and can infinitely attack an enemy ship if that ship has weak AA and are unable to shoot down any aircraft. it's just really stupid and makes me feel frustrated and defeated when i think about it.

Recommendations (note: these recommendations are not intended to be be suggested as if they should be implemented all at once, they are each possible implementations that i think would balance the power of carriers)

• AA Gun placement regeneration (idea stolen from another forum post)
  • Having AA guns regenerate over time, like how carriers can regenerate their aircraft, would make it a necessity for carriers to attack ships which are already under fire and have their AA guns knocked out as well as increase the usefulness of sending rocket attack planes to pepper a target before using other attack aircraft. This would not be a significant change alone but is rather a supplementary change and just fits well with everything.
    • Having it be a necessity to send in rocket attack planes initially would give a heads-up to any ship as to who is being currently targeted by a carrier, giving time for the ship to group up with a cruiser before more attack aircraft come it's way or give cruisers time to find a buddy and support them against the on-coming aircraft assault.
• Increased effectiveness of AA aircraft
  • Whether it be a more proficient AI which targets the main squadron of aircraft, a larger effective range, increased fighter speed, increased HP or all of them combined, Fighter aircraft need to be improved. as they are, fighters are only effective on a rare few occasions
  • Making carrier dropped aircraft able to be dropped or called to follow a specific allied ship EXCLUSIVELY and not called on an aircraft's location.
    • making this VITAL CHANGE would make fighters less selfish, as it stands, carriers simply use fighters to spot enemy ships which is broken (if you place the fighters out of AA fire, then can spot ships for their entire duration uninhibited) and selfish, this NEEDS TO CHANGE because the entire reason for this mechanic existing (i.e. to suppress enemy aircraft attacks against your allied ships) is the last thing that a carrier thinks about when launching an attack.
• Decreased HP of attack aircraft
  • This recommendation is another universal change which would balance aircraft since (in my opinion) they are currently just far too durable. by making aircraft more likely to be lost in an attack would mean that carriers would have to be more careful when attacking ships and avoiding AA cruisers (or, if tied with my first suggestion, mean that is would be even more necessary for CVs to attack recently-battered ships with TEMPORARILY reduced AA capabilities) and if not, actually have the risk of not being able to use any squadrons for a while due to being far too risky. As it stands, a carrier will rarely run out of aircraft in a single aircraft type let alone their entire lineup, this needs to change and make game play more risky for carriers
  • Reverting the means by which aircraft take damage back to the way it was previously
    • The current system is just idiocy, sure it means that an attack squadron gets weaker as it loses aircraft but the quick withdrawal of aircraft doesn't grant enough time for sufficient damage (to outweigh the total HP of all aircraft in a division) to be inflicted upon aircraft and be able to shoot even one of them down. Reverting this would mean 2 things:
      • 1. That a well-defended ship will be able to knock out aircraft FAR more consistently
      • 2. That carriers will not have situations where all of their aircraft are lost in the span of 2 seconds due to their HP total being met by their prey.
      • implementing such a change would also warrant an increase in the HP of squadrons to balance things out
• Get rid of that stupid change which reduced the AA effectiveness of grouped ships
  • Enough said, it's just stupid. why was it even added in the first place?

Now feel free to discuss in comments so we can get the attention of WG and raise disease awareness of "Carriers", it affects the lives of thousands of WoWS players in every region every day.

Also please being up any valuable points which i missed, i will try to add the good ones in an "edit" section ^-^

[legionary2099]

I certainly have a healthy respect for AA unlike you.

AA cruiser can still do their job , and are pretty much immune to lower tier CV. Only equal or higher tier have any chance of tackling them.

Losing a full squadron is not nice. That's why i attack with half squadron and do slingshot to bypass AA BECAUSE AA is STRONG.

What you are mentioning is not AA or plane powercreep , it is imbalance between tier and how WG spread AA apart. +/-2 is a big difference in strength , not only in AA but also in ship capability. If you are a -2 guy , you are food , simple as that.

A Minotaur will wipe the floor against any tier 10 CV while tier 8 can only kiss their feet and not slap them.

It is not about buffing AA or buffing planes , it is about lowering the increase in capabilities between +/-2 tier. A tier 10 AA ship is thrice to four times as effective as a ship two tiers lower in certain category.

Improvements should be incrementally , not a huge jump in performance.

People take CV attacks far too personally. CV need to be right up to their face to attack while ship can pew pew at them all day long and they are not annoyed , what the heck ???

How is a CV strike package howling the ship any different from groups of ship howling each other from a distance.

Conceal doesn't work , because CV need to be right up to their face to deliver the package. Then stop speccing conceal and invest in AA power. Then they ask if they spec AA , they are weak to other sheeps ???? WTH.  Not being able to cover all bases are the WHOLE POINT of the 19 pt skill system. It create variation so there is no one win it all. It sucks to be in the wrong spec for a match , but hey it creates in depth style between players.

[charleark]

World OF Aircraft Carriers. That should be the new name  for the game. Every other class of ship has been excluded especially destroyers. As i have stated in a previous post i have spent many hours building up a fleet of destroyers for most available countries. Just to see the time wasted by reducing my effectiveness to play the game. Reduced to a wooden row boat with a pair of oars and a sling shot.Roman galleys have more usefulness than my fleet. I will admit i was never  a gun player but at least i enjoyed the game with some hope to progress.   

[AxEyBoI]

Problem is this game is about ships, not planes. The balance is CV must be weaker in order to balance the game in the play style 90% of the players base wants to play. Even 50/50 is not the way we want. Cos if thats so, the game is then become a plane game. There will be no need for ships and only CV and then they may as well put in land based air fields and so forth changing the game to plane game and shoot planes and bot ships. This game cant have both balanced. Its either Planes or Ships. WG must choose wisely.

[AntifoulAwl]

You will gain WGs attention all right.

Someone there will look at this and laugh.

[sunlo2013]

I don't mind another CV suggestion threads but this is likely to turn into CV flaming contest just like every other one. Especially if people like me start to discuss seriously. 

So If you want WG attention, you recommend OP to also make a post on wows reddit.

[_Blink_Blackwolf]

I will just add a very simple thing :

Please play considerable amount of battles in CVs in T8+ environments before making a thread like this. 

Constructive posts are always welcome and people are encouraged to share their thoughts. However, not having first hand experience with a ship class will leave you ill-informed about the strengths and weaknesses of that class. That is why you need to try all classes to have a better understanding overall.

Thank you.

[Paladinum]

56 minutes ago, _TAMAL_ said:

I will just add a very simple thing :

Please play considerable amount of battles in CVs in T8+ environments before making a thread like this. 

Constructive posts are always welcome and people are encouraged to share their thoughts. However, not having first hand experience with a ship class will leave you ill-informed about the strengths and weaknesses of that class. That is why you need to try all classes to have a better understanding overall.

Thank you.

I wanna ask: are summonable fighters working as designed? The ones that is consumable on strike squadrons? Because WG said that they are supposed to shoot down as many enemy aircrafts as there are many fighters in the group.

They don't look like they are effective at being fighters - fighting hostile aircrafts.

[Thyaliad]

Just buff the fighters. Increase their duration, action radius, etc. I wouldn't want to touch the other aspects for now 

2 hours ago, Paladinum said:

I wanna ask: are summonable fighters working as designed? The ones that is consumable on strike squadrons? Because WG said that they are supposed to shoot down as many enemy aircrafts as there are many fighters in the group.

In theory yes, but in actuality no. I could be wrong, but from what I observed the fighters engage one squad of aircraft and then leaves regardless of how many fighters are remaining.

So say I have a squadron of 7 fighters, the fighters engage an enemy squadron of 4 planes and shoot them all down. But instead of having 3 fighters left, the fighter squadron just leaves so I have no fighters left.

Imo WG should allow leftover fighters to remain in the area until they expire.

 

21 hours ago, legionary2099 said:

What you are mentioning is not AA or plane powercreep , it is imbalance between tier and how WG spread AA apart. +/-2 is a big difference in strength , not only in AA but also in ship capability. If you are a -2 guy , you are food , simple as that.

A Minotaur will wipe the floor against any tier 10 CV while tier 8 can only kiss their feet and not slap them.

It is not about buffing AA or buffing planes , it is about lowering the increase in capabilities between +/-2 tier. A tier 10 AA ship is thrice to four times as effective as a ship two tiers lower in certain category.

This.

The real problem is the AA disparity between tiers, as Legionary says. Imo AA is adequate when fighting same tier CVs, a useless joke when bottom-tiered and ridiculously strong when top-tiered. Even my non-AA Yamato has no problem swatting down tier 8 planes.

WG need to look at flattening the AA/plane hp increase per tier.

[Paladinum]

23 minutes ago, Thyaliad said:

In theory yes, but in actuality no. I could be wrong, but from what I observed is the fighters engage one squad of aircraft and then leaves regardless of how many fighters are remaining.

So say I have a squadron of 7 fighters, the fighters engage an enemy squadron of 4 planes and shoot them all down. But instead of having 3 fighters left, the fighter squadron just leaves so I havr no fighters left.

Imo WG should allow leftover fighters to remain in the area until they expire.

They should make the fighters respond better. I feel like they are very slow to respond to threats within their AoE (ship-launched fighters have this downside as well). I think the AoE needs to be bigger, and the circle shouldn't be readily visible to the enemy. Why do you give the enemy the information to avoid you... That's some bad strategy.

[Mechfori]

I think the fighter also exhibit irrational handicapped defensive capability. Right now its one for one fighter vs enemy attack planes of all kind but really they are fighters, even the worst fighters do not exchange 1 to 1 when faced against slow ( and yet to release their ordinance ) sluggish attack planes .. exchange ratio are certainly higher and in time much higher ( especially with torp plane who must fly in a set speed and straight ... The fighter AOE cricle should only be made visible to enemy when enemy planes enter the AOE zone not before that, or there should be an air to air spotting range implemented ( right now this is badly done even on surface to air )

[Paladinum]

21 hours ago, legionary2099 said:

+/-2 is a big difference in strength , not only in AA but also in ship capability. If you are a -2 guy , you are food , simple as that.

You know what THEY say, "+2/-2 MM will not help anything. You need to git gud" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I got an army of clones triggered for saying a fact.

 

[legionary2099]

34 minutes ago, Paladinum said:

You know what THEY say, "+2/-2 MM will not help anything. You need to git gud" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I got an army of clones triggered for saying a fact.

 

Food doesn't equate to easy food or don't bite please enjoy food.

Google coconut worms in fish sauce to know what i mean LMAO.

[Paladinum]

3 minutes ago, legionary2099 said:

Google coconut worms in fish sauce to know what i mean LMAO.

How about no.