Ahskance

This already exists in our game amongst the competitive scene. I've played with Hurricane teams for over a year, so I'm familiar with how extreme and cut-throat the player-style there can be. It is not kind and it is very focused on winning.

This is one of the reasons why I try to remind people to keep a sense of perspective when discussing issues with high-order unicums. Casual and Average players have one type of game they are playing and I assure you the Unicums and up are playing a Very Different Game.

There is a large difference between stating a concern, planting a flag on where you believe a balance point should be, and then extrapolating out from that balance point as to how to get there and why getting there is indeed a good thing for all parties.

I recently asked what "Powerful AA" might mean and was told

"The only way it can feel powerful is by preventing attacks -- or, to a lesser degree, shooting down a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of planes that aren't fighters."

So, how would that be functionally possible while still allowing CVs to actually be able to play the game? Or, would it mean that CVs would expect to not be able to play the game for X amount of time? If so, what amount of time would be acceptable to a player? If damage interactions are not possible, what alterations are required to allow for non-damage options (ie: support CV concepts).

It's a very large topic and likely a fascinating one. It cann...

Speaking as a player and not as a CM, I have been continually impressed by our Dev Team's ability to balance things. While some newly released ships might be strong or weak for the first several months, we have a practice of giving ships a few patches for players to figure them out. After we have enough actionable data to work with, then we can look at if they need to be altered (like with the Nahkimov).

It can be frustrating from a player perspective to have to wait, but everything is a process and we're bogged down working on a LOT of stuff at the same time.

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The biggest moment of trust from me came from when I was a CC. I was writing out a detailed proposal on how to alter some CV mechanics that were in testing... and in the middle of my typing there was a DevBlog where they had already made adjustments to and addressed my concerns days prior (because testing iteration is remarkably quick).

To my knowledge, there has been no real in-depth AA discussion since I've been a Community Manager. If there's a chance of me being able to dive into the topic and figure out some ways to describe or system-craft ideas to kick upstairs, then I will.

I've spent literally years dissecting the AA mechanics both on stream and in-video, including mathing out a ship in its entirety for @SaiIor_Moon

Earlier in this thread, I invited Mouse to start a thread to talk about AA. She's brought it up recently and it could result in a good discussion.

Hopefully it won't just be a lot of people saying little more than "Buff AA" because that's not an actionable argument. Examples, numbers, concepts, and situations are what are needed to push for systemic alterations.

I am not a Game Designer for us, so my opinion doesn't matter very much. I can make suggestions, but I mostly just interact with people on the forum and try to translate player frustration into terms that are understandable in gameplay speak.

I really don't think being able to have a torp climb 20+ meters in less than 1km would be about fighting DDs. If a DD is within 1km of you, you're likely just screwed in a sub.

I would think it's more about having torps that can consistently home in on an enemy sub in a sub duel. Remember, we run at a 3-to-1 compression on distances, so 1.3 km is like 400m in distance which seems REALLY close.

That is correct. So that leads to the question of, "Does adding this concept alter the game? If so, is it good? bad? useful? unpleasant?" All of these things are answered from actual testing of the concept, which is what the DevBlog is about. We decided to test something.

The community backlash being as strong as it is might mean that even if it's well-received by testers (yes, that could actually happen) that it may be altered/abandoned anyway. That is a possibility. However, the strength/health of the game is the most important aspect to us, so actual concept testing is still going to matter to us.

Flashbangs and other mechanics exist for all kinds of games including Shooters. There's been a massive amount of games created over the past 50 years. Fundamental gaming concepts have been used and reused across nearly every genre of game that exists.

True, but if you don't have a method of unraveling a situation than it comes down to either Brute Forcing it or relying on extreme out-skilling. Adding in a tactical component does allow for more possibilities in how to overcome a situation.

CC is often required in PvP circles as the most effective means of breaking stalemates. At least where healing or burst threat is involved.

The is no perfect game system.

"Crowd Control" is a common game-support class concept. A Stun that allows teammates to attack more reliably has been around for decades.

It seems that players extremely dislike that idea being used in this game, so it's likely best to just find different supportive concepts to lean on instead.

You have to understand that I'm one of the few voices that actually believes AA matters. I've demonstrated why I believe that at length, but that discussion is best handled in a different thread. So yes, on this topic I'm a strange interaction point.

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The reason I point out that I point out the expectation of being punished by an enemy is because I'm very much of the belief that a PvP game involves people using anything and everything in their power to take down their opponent. It's often a very no mercy form of combat. As such, I see being locked out to likely be frustrating while being focus fired, but I can respect that the enemy team is there to sink my ship as quickly as possible and move on to the next target.

The biggest feedback that I'm reading has been that players what access to all of their tools all of the time because the game is already hard enough. So players would rather the CV be able to buff their enemies and m...

A Community Manager is an interaction point.

We translate information from the Company to the Community


We translate information from the Community to the Company

We have a foot in both worlds, though Boggzy and I have been players for years so mentally we're still very rooted in the Community-side of things.

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If you're expecting us to publicly disagree with what our company has decided to do, then that would be us deciding to override the values of our company publicly. That would be rather bizarre. We have internal processes for providing our own thoughts and feelings on topics.

Publicly, we ARE the representatives of the company, so it's on us to do our best to convey the What and Why of our company's reasoning.

We have to do the exact same thing in regards to conveying the What and Why of the Community's response when putting forth our own reports. We have d...

I'll message it to you. This thread is about the DevBlog.

How deep were you? I'm guessing that change was done more for anti-Sub purposes to allow for more consistent sub-dueling. Did the torp go nearly straight up or something?

I suppose I could have a group-discussion stream that goes over the video. Still, it was a long-form dissection of it and was done in good faith.

I disagree in regards to AA, but that's a different topic/thread.

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Remember, you can use islands and other forms of play to deny enemy attacks. This is one of the points brought up on why CVs are problematic as they aren't constrained by islands and such.

If you are in cover and get locked out, you're still in cover. That aspect didn't change because the only damage you could receive would be from other ships instead of the CV (if they were using the stun bomb mechanic).

I actually made literally 2 hours of video just going over that.

The narratives that were spun from it were extremely undeserved.

Please make a thread with your AA proposals so we can talk at length there.

Matchmaker does not factor in anything other then:

Ship Type


Ship Nation


Ship Tier

The Matchmaker doesn't know what winning or losing means. It's just a system for grouping the players that queue. As players queue of their own accord, it takes a smattering of what's available. Matchmaker is purely Random to allow for the more replayability and variety in our game.