Rina plays CV for the first time

[Rina_Pon]

I finally broke down and took Rhein out in the Co-op kiddie pool.

Took about 5-6 games to get a hang of the basics and get my first kill. Having a good pre-understanding already of what CVs actually do, and the waypoint system, and the minimap, figuring out the attack mechanics of each plane type was the main challenge. Damage output went from literally zero to about 25k.

Some thoughts and impressions:

1. I felt I was having to work harder for less damage done. Each attack takes way longer to set up and execute than the main battery reload on battleships, and the damage output per strike is pitiful in comparison.

2. The citadels you get with this German CV is a bit of a joke. Sure, you'll pick up a ton of citadel ribbons, but the damage you do is still trivial.

3. In Co-op, you are better off driving your CV up to the font lines and supporting your ships with your good AA and secondaries, than you are safely hiding at the back. Bots take forever to kill you even when you are spotted, so you might as well tank it.

4. Now maybe this will change, but honestly I can't say I really enjoyed the experience. It was alright I guess, but I didn't feel I had the tactical options available to me the same way I would with a surface ship. I felt I was playing against a game mechanic rather than the enemy team. Too much of the engagement concerned the arbitrary difficulty of lining up the wibbly-wobbly cursor in an attack run. The rest of it was essentially water-carrying: ferrying ordinance from my carrier to the enemy ship, deliver and repeat.

I realize that target selection and time management between spotting/defending/attacking are all strategic parts of CV gameplay, and I understand that this was Co-op, so there isn't much strategy going on, period. But still, you know the sector reinforcement AA mechanic on ships, right, where you click the keys in response to plane attack? Well, playing a CV feels somewhat like that, only full time. The things you do feel like mechanics WG arbitrarily put  in the game to keep CV players occupied, rather than interacting with enemy ships directly.

[dejiko_nyo]

See what I have always said? Your performance actually will scale as you get better but yes, it is frustrating to enjoy.

Also, co-op CV is like miserable. It was already meh in RTS CV, this just makes it miserable.

Unfortunate for you, you missed out on the fun that was RTS CV. 

[Max_Battle]

I've never been good in a CV.

RTS, FPS, meh, not for me.

I can find something to do in all the other classes but in a CV I just flounder.

I think my tactics are lacking. I should have read that thing @CV_NMSL posted a while back about how to git gud in CV.

Probably.

Or maybe I whale enough on the other classes.

Probably.

[Metal_illness]

Cvs are fun and exciting to play, the german tech tree are the hardest to develop skills in by far.

What WG did with the cv change is truly quite an incredible achievement.

CVs are also frustrating as hell. You're playing for yourself, in a team game, where everyone else on team is playing for themselves, yet you need some semblance of teamplay to win!.

And the cv player on team really is important. No pressure.

[Reinhard_of_Avercland]

And that's only at T4, where good AA is a CV-only thing (solely thanks to their self fighters).

At T6 & 8, you will pray to not get the bottom tier, since it would de-pad your average damage further due to the almost non-existent opportunity to score hits.

I remember someone posted a screenshot of 50 plane kills in a Lyon. I don't know how it happens, but one thing for sure; the OP of that screenshot knows what she's doing (assuming that OP is a female). So yeah CVs can no longer do much if the targets actually know what they are doing. Unlike the RTS CVs, which they could devstrike almost anything other than the American ships.

And yeah you did not mention 2 more things that you have not seen because the T4 is not where the real CV gameplay starts:

1. The plane's regeneration rate. - T4 CVs have the most forgiving ones since they barely face against AA that are decent enough. At the other tiers, you would be pressured to lose as few planes as possible, which is why most CV players would pre-drop one or two strikes into nothing before they attack. Because if they lose too much quickly, they won't be able to do much in the later part of the game because they lose planes faster than your plane's regeneration rate. UK CVs are the worst ones in this department due to their lengthy plane build time. While Enterprise is deemed to be OP thanks to her absurdly fast plane build time/high plane's regeneration rate
2. The plane's survivability. - Both the German & Japanese CVs have flimsy planes. At T4, this is not an issue. But at the other tiers, it determines your ability to execute a strike. Currently the AA mechanic is designed so that even the strongest level of AA of a single ship is still weak enough for CVs to score a strike. But due to the thing called "blobbing", there are only few planes that can bust through the "blobbing" to score a strike (Audacious & any US UK CVs against lower tier AA). And unfortunately, both the German & Japanese CVs barely have enough survivability to bust through a lone ship with decent AA. Which is why most of them seem to attack only the irrelevant targets even though those targets don't pose any threats to your team. I mean sure, you can order them to attack the relevant targets like Stalingrad/Petro/Wooster/Halland. But they will most likely refuse your order unless it is only for the last blow.

[Thyaliad]

Coop CV play isn't very rewarding since Coop is a damage race, and other ships have better dpm or burst capability. Use Coop as a way to get comfortable with the flight controls and the aiming mechanics. Bots are also very good at torpedo beats so they are a good practice target for hitting with your torpedo squadrons. After that you can try out what you have learnt in Tier 4 Randoms.

Imo the real meat of CV gameplay doesn't start until Tier 6. That is when CV patrol fighters are a thing and AA actually starts to get dangerous. Apart from learning how to dodge flak, here is where you have to start thinking strategy and planning who, what, when and how to attack an enemy. This is a lot more complex that it sounds, because you have to multiple things into consideration - balancing plane reserves, enemy movement, whether to pre-drop or not, enemy AA power, enemy threat levels, etc. And due to the nature of planes being able to go anywhere on the map, you have to do all this thinking on the fly. Any downtime spent thinking of what to do next is wasted time and therefore wasted damage potential that could have helped your team.

I guess the big difference between normal ships and CVs is that while normal ships think on a tactical level - like angling, aiming and positioning - CVs think on a map-wide level. As a CV, you should be constantly scanning the minimap to identify targets that you could attack to sway the tide of battle. Like do you try to spot and attack the enemy DD that is hounding your team and preventing them from pushing?  Or do you try to dislodge the island camping radar cruiser that is preventing your DD from capping? Do you try to support the winning flank in mopping up enemies or the losing flank that is in desperate need for more firepower?

In the end it is a different style of gameplay, which is why I enjoy playing both CVs and surface ships. It adds a lot of variety to the game, and variety is the spice of life as they say. CV gameplay may not be for everybody but that's ok.

 

[EULA_violator]

On 8/12/2020 at 5:19 PM, Max_Battle said:

I've never been good in a CV.

RTS, FPS, meh, not for me.

I can find something to do in all the other classes but in a CV I just flounder.

I think my tactics are lacking. I should have read that thing @CV_NMSL posted a while back about how to git gud in CV.

Probably.

Or maybe I whale enough on the other classes.

Probably.

[THAI_THIEF]

Buddha have soul!