[2022] Feedback on Historic Ships: Style or Substance?

With the recent conversation regarding the San Diego's proposed implementation, a very real question has emerged.

If a Historical Ship is brought into our game, there is a high likelihood that it will want to be played by a Wide Audience. So, I'm going to put the question out to everyone...

1) Should Historically Significant ships be made as basic and universally playable as possible?

2) Should Niche or Narrow playstyles be avoided, even if they are a nod to the History of the ship?

Please leave your thoughts below.

This is often my concern - that if we put a historical ship into the game and don't make it stand out (without being OP), that the blowback will be that we are disrespecting something unique by making it ubiquitous.
It's a pickle, ain't it?

You are correct, my questions were not about "gimmicks" but about "skill floor". Essentially asking if historical ships are going to be so much of a wider-audience draw that they should be crafted in a way that is accessible to the greatest number of people.

The second question was a furtherance of the first. In a way it's a re-asking of the first question, but from a different direction. Basically asking, "Can historical flavor be addressed with outlier capabilities that pull away from the skill floor?"

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A lot of your work revolves around consumer advocacy and my work mostly revolves around player protection. We align strongly in that respect.

The game system observer/designer in me saw an issue where players who like history but are not deeply skilled at the game could be incentivized to purchase a historical ship that they cannot actually play/perform in. For instance, the Austin is a very powerful ship because burst-windows are extremely powerful... in skilled hands. This makes her a great Steel ship as Steel is a good time-gate to how quickly a player could attain a ship. A Premium being purchasable has no such restriction, so that stood out as a real problem of "I just bought this ship and all I do is lose in it "

My two questions are in effect:

1) Should a historical ship try to have a low skill floor to accommodate players that buy her for historical reasons but still actually want to sail her?

2) Should we avoid narrow play patterns even if it means losing the ability to highlight a niche part of a ship as a historical nod?

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The discussion by players here has been very on topic and it's been great feedback. This thread was submitted up along with your discussion of the San Diego.

Thank you for giving us more specifics about this
For the sake of furthering this discussion to it's next logical level, I'm going to request even more specifics about points #1 and #2, because I think this is getting somewhere good.

#1: Preserve the historical identity of a ship

No Argument here! I completely agree and this is a no-brainer. Where we come into disagreement is the scale. You and I disagreed over San Diego's proposed AA suite since she was, historically, an AA picket ship. To me, a picket ship is something that has the highest reach over the most allies to act as an AA escort to a group of ships, not just 1. San Diego as proposed has the second-highest long-range DPS and flak count of any T8 cruiser, second only to P.Bagration. To me - that means it can project more assistance to more ships than anything other than P.Bag. That rings true as an "AA picket ship" to me. You and I may differ on how significant this is in terms of actual gameplay, but the concept of it is certainly there and not dismissed.

If we were to input the USS Johnston, for example, I would expect and fight hard for some aspect of it to be longevity and / or survivability as it took so much damage and kept fighting. That needs to translate into something specific in-game though and that could be:

A heal


French damage-saturation mechanic


Some new thing that doesn't exist yet

Johnston ALSO notably covered the carriers it was escorting in smoke to cover their retreat. So, to emulate that in-game, should it have the already-excellent American smoke? That fulfills the spirit of history, but isn't unique. Should it get Pan-Asian smoke so it can smoke more frequently, albeit for less time? This is what I meant by scale. What does it actually LOOK LIKE in game to fulfill it's historical theme? These are things that we consider while determining the character of the ship and the risk is always that people will not see it our way.

The historical attributes must translate into something actionable in-game and there has to be a scale for that. Any suggestions that you have will be well-served by making comparisons to current assets in-game!

#2: "Make it fun" Here's where we need to get more specific, because fun is subjective to a wide-ranging playerbase and yet still must translate into actionable values in the game - that looks like the following:

For example - Boggzy finds Austin to be tremendously fun to play because he like boats that are high skill-floor / high skill-ceiling. The challenge of getting good at something difficult IS the fun part in my experience. Many people HATE this concept because fun for them is loading into a straightforward boat, having a very straightforward game, and not having to think too much about it. Bismarck and Tirptiz are boats that fit this "Go forward, do damage, die gloriously" idea. I can't stand this playstyle now. It's not fun for me. So for which type of person should we be designing a new historical ship? Whose idea of fun is more appropriate for a new ship? This is the part where Ahskance and I am asking you to get more specific. We have 500+ ships in game so by all means, please use examples. Let us know what ships are fun for you and why so we can understand better your idea of fun! (My favorite ship to play is "Agir", btw - which many people HATE)

Regarding the "a player shouldn't be punished for playing a ship as designed", I couldn't agree more. I tend to find ships that are Medium/High skill-floor and Low skill-ceiling fall under this category. I felt that Kansas did this back in the day when Deadeye was still in the game. Kansas could not hit the broadside of a barn, couldn't run away, couldn't chase, and had a 40s reload on top of it. It did nothing well. This was due to the fact that it had a heavy alpha strike when Deadeye was a thing and the Kansas's accuracy was summarily buffed as time went on and Deadeye left us (RIP).

#3: Make the ship accessible to as many players as possible without compromising #1

So this is where the rubber meets the road. "Accessible to as many players as possible" effectively means "Low skill-floor". Easy to pick up and immediately begin using. I would argue that Premiums Cruisers can be charted like:

Austin / Repulse - High skill-floor, High skill-ceiling.


Napoli / Alaska - Low skill-floor, extremely High skill-ceiling.


Agincourt - Medium skill floor, High skill-ceiling.

Belfast '43 / Atlanta - Medium skill floor, Medium skill-ceiling


Pyotor Bagration - Low skill-floor, Medium skill-ceiling


Atago - Low skill-floor, Medium skill-ceiling

Ochakov - High skill-floor, Low skill-ceiling


Rochester - Low skill-floor, Low skill-ceiling


Gorizia - Medium skill-floor, Low skill-ceiling

A ship with "access to a wide audience" without compromising historical flavor tells me that it should fall in the Medium skill-floor, Medium/High skill-ceiling format like an Agincourt. My favorite ships are ships like Repulse / Austin / Agincourt / Napoli that can have maximum influence on a battle when played well.

#4: Give the ship a high skill ceiling.

This is where things get dangerous, because you don't want to release a boat that is easy to play and overperforms. Napoli and Alaska are scary to me because they can be mastered quickly and have extremely high capabilities. See #3, I suppose.
I appreciate you getting more specific in your answers, Mouse! When you do, I feel more comfortable coming in, helping to flesh things out, and coming away with something that lasts!