Conqueror: Where are her 457mm Guns?

[ShaddowAU]

I've finally just unlocked my first tier 10 ship, the RN BB Conqueror. My excitement was quickly dulled as I noticed the option to switch between the 419mm and 457mm main guns on my ship is not there and instead the only option is for the 419mm guns. Do you have to do something to unlock the 457mm guns or have WG nerfed the Conqueror (yet again) and remove this option? Is it unlocked by doing the mission to get the unique 'Enhanced Engineering Systems' upgrade module?

[Project45_Opytny]

Due to the popularity of the stock 419-mm option and the "failure" of the original 457-mm option's concept, WG decided to remove the 457-mm main guns from tech-tree Conqueror and remake the original concept of an enlarged Vanguard with Warspite's established gunnery handling (with some rework of dispersion formula to make the gunnery more comfortable to offset the decrease of DPM output) into a new freemium, Thunderer, which can be exchanged for quite a little sum of coal at the armory.

This change has been mentioned in the official bulletin for Patch 0.8.8.

Since the developing stage of the Soviet battleships, WG has reconsidered the previous practice of offering different main battery options for a same ship as that would be troublesome for balancing between the two modules. Originally the T10 Soviet BB was also suggested to have an option to choose between 406-mm main guns and 457-mm ones, however, difficulty in balancing and potential gaming/handling styles made WG to split the original concept into two ships, the tech-tree T10 Kreml with 457-mm guns and the WiP Slava/Pobeda with 406-mm ones.

[ShaddowAU]

19 minutes ago, Project45_Opytny said:

Due to the popularity of the stock 419-mm option and the "failure" of the original 457-mm option's concept, WG decided to remove the 457-mm main guns from tech-tree Conqueror and remake the original concept of an enlarged Vanguard with Warspite's established gunnery handling (with some rework of dispersion formula to make the gunnery more comfortable to offset the decrease of DPM output) into a new freemium, Thunderer, which can be exchanged for quite a little sum of coal at the armory.

This change has been mentioned in the official bulletin for Patch 0.8.8.

Since the developing stage of the Soviet battleships, WG has reconsidered the previous practice of offering different main battery options for a same ship as that would be troublesome for balancing between the two modules. Originally the T10 Soviet BB was also suggested to have an option to choose between 406-mm main guns and 457-mm ones, however, difficulty in balancing and potential gaming/handling styles made WG to split the original concept into two ships, the tech-tree T10 Kreml with 457-mm guns and the WiP Slava/Pobeda with 406-mm ones.

Thanks for that, so nerf it was. What is strange is if WG doesn't like to balance ships with multiple main gun modules then I don't get why the ship before Conqueror, Lion, still has the option for either 406mm and 419mm main guns? Now they have nerfed Conqueror again, Lion is the only RN BB to have more than one main gun option, makes no sense. Anyway removing an option on Conqueror and then selling you back a repackaged version of Conqueror with that option on it is a pretty s#!t thing to do if you ask me, typical WG. Anyone who unlocked Conqueror should at least be able to buy Thunderer at half the normal coal price (free sound more fair but they would never do that).

[Project45_Opytny]

5 minutes ago, ShaddowAU said:

Thanks for that, so nerf it was. What is strange is if WG doesn't like to balance ships with multiple main gun modules then I don't get why the ship before Conqueror, Lion, still has the option for either ,406mm and 419mm main guns? Now they have nerfed Conqueror again, Lion is the only RN BB to have more than one main gun option, makes no sense. Anyway removing an option on Conqueror and then selling you back a repackaged version of Conqueror with that option on it is a pretty s#!t thing to do if you ask me, typical WG.

I think the problem is that there are major differences between 419-mm guns (in triple mounts) and 457-mm guns (in twin mounts) that make the problem more complex than a simple exchange between DPS and DPM thanks to the battleship dispersion problems. British battleships have only mediocre dispersion since KGV at T7 and the original accuracy buff of the 457-mm option seems to be inadequate to solve the problem. 

As for Kreml, perhaps WG considered that the 457-mm guns would be too advantageous and superior to the 406-mm ones, and as a result the 406-mm split was given traditional battleship dispersion formula instead of the Soviet one which encourages active push and mid-range battles.

[Moggytwo]

5 hours ago, ShaddowAU said:

Thanks for that, so nerf it was. What is strange is if WG doesn't like to balance ships with multiple main gun modules then I don't get why the ship before Conqueror, Lion, still has the option for either 406mm and 419mm main guns? Now they have nerfed Conqueror again, Lion is the only RN BB to have more than one main gun option, makes no sense. Anyway removing an option on Conqueror and then selling you back a repackaged version of Conqueror with that option on it is a pretty s#!t thing to do if you ask me, typical WG. Anyone who unlocked Conqueror should at least be able to buy Thunderer at half the normal coal price (free sound more fair but they would never do that).

Well technically it wasn't a nerf to remove Conq's 457's, since they were significantly worse than the 419's.  There has been no reduction in power of the ship.  It's more a removal of options.

Having said that, I can see why you'd be annoyed if the 457 option was one of the reasons you were grinding Conqueror.

The positive in this situation is that Thunderer is a great ship, where 457 Conqueror wasn't very good at all.  So if you wanted a 457 Conq, you can now play one that is actually really good, which is nice.  The negative is it will cost you 252k coal for the privilege.  Which basically equates to time, since you get it just be playing the game normally.

The way they did the split was pretty poor.  It was assumed (but not announced by WG) that Thunderer would be an alternate T10 tech tree ship like the Slava was intended to be.  Since they couldn't manage to balance Slava it's introduction has yet to happen, so they likely at least temporarily abandoned the alt tech tree T10 thing, and decided to introduce Thunderer for coal.  In recent times they've been nice enough to announce coal ships well in advance so people could make decisions as to where they would be spending their coal, but with Thunderer they announced that it would be a coal ship the day before release!  Which is pretty rough on people who assumed that since no coal ships were announced for the near future, they would be safe to spend their coal on other things (I'm talking about me, obviously! ).

[Moggytwo]

Well it was announced over four months ago back in May that they would be removing the 457mm option and putting it on Thunderer.  So it's not like that was suddenly sprung on us.

Having said that, if you don't pay any attention to WG announcements or Q&A's then you could well be surprised.  I'm not sure what else they could do in terms of giving notice though, if they put the information out there through the standard channels, they can't help it if some players choose not to read that info.  Your main issue seems to be that you thought you were grinding to a 457 Conqueror, and were disappointed to find out after reaching that ship that the 457 option was no longer available to you.  Is that your issue or WG's though?  In terms of letting you know as far in advance as possible, what more could they have done?

Edit: totally meant this post to be in the other thread you made on the same subject.  My bad.  Perhaps two threads for one topic isn't ideal.

[Grygus_Triss]

Noticed this when I was looking at my future T10s In he port.

With Thunderer coming, it doesn’t surprise me the option was removed. Would not really call it a nerf though.

Very few people used the 457 option, and judging on the fact that I have not seen numerous threads, posts, videos complaining about the removal, very few people even noticed or cared.

The only real downsides is that now you are forced to use the 419 playstyle, it’s no longer just an option, not that many people chose otherwise anyway.

That, and the fact that those people who won’t/can’t get the Thunderer can’t say “If I wanted Thunderer I would just equip 457s on my Conqueror”. Yeah, I know the ships are very different, but this is people trying to justify why they wouldn’t/couldn’t spend the resources, they can no longer use that defence.

Do I actually care about it myself? Naaaahh. If I want big guns, that what I have Yamato for, I’m grinding Conq for the different playstyle of being an annoying jerk and pummeling scrubs with 12x 419 HE spam.

[HobartAWD]

Upfront I will say that I had Conq very early on and grinded to unlock the 457mm guns. I also have Thunderer. Conq with 457mm guns you were not missing out on anything. Trust me it isn't a nerf. Removing an option that was barely used because it was so terrible is not a nerf. It is doing everyone a favour.  The 419mm guns are way better. I used the 457mm guns for a grand total of 4-5 games in coop and then never touched them again. Playstyle didn't change, just you would not land more than 1 or 2 shells on average every salvo from your 8 shells. 419's do a little less alpha but you consistently land way more shells.

Legend mod Conq with the 419mm guns is a real lot of fun. BB armour on a very agile 10.4 sec rudder hull with the 419mm guns is a hoot to play. I never show side intentionally in any BB I play, so even after the citadel was raised I was still having good games. The AP shell fuse change also means now the Conq AP is very deadly and makes intelligent ammo choice very rewarding. While you can still play like before and just spam HE all game, switching to AP is a highly recommended tactic now, even against BBs. I would call the shell fuse change a huge buff. Overall I am enjoying Legend mod Conq with the 419mm way more than before.

WG's decisions are their own. They could have chose to make the 457mm option work better on Conq but they chose to release a new ship with the improved 457mm guns. 

[HobartAWD]

1 hour ago, Moggytwo said:

In recent times they've been nice enough to announce coal ships well in advance so people could make decisions as to where they would be spending their coal, but with Thunderer they announced that it would be a coal ship the day before release!  Which is pretty rough on people who assumed that since no coal ships were announced for the near future, they would be safe to spend their coal on other things (I'm talking about me, obviously! ).

You can add me to that list. I thought that nothing was coming anytime soon so I got Yoshino for kicks and giggles. Proceeds to spend the coal without a discount coupon and 3 days later Smolensk arrives! Didn't I feel like a dill  . I now have fixed that mistake and got both Smolensk and Thunderer. Would not have bought Yoshino if I knew this in advance as I am not going to play it much.

Probably was announced when it was coming, but I work 2 jobs 5-6 days a week and don't feel the need to look at my phone every 23.6 seconds like a teenager

[Reinhard_of_Avercland]

Conqueror's 457mm was not that great to be honest. Despite being advertised to be "more accurate" than the 419mm, the dispersion was still awful compared to Montana & Yamato. And the short-fuse AP on the 457mm made it completely useless at range even against the barely angled targets.

And Thunderer's 457mm is much better because it reloads faster (26s vs 30s), actually more accurate, and no short-fuse gimmick which used to negate the supposedly big caliber.