A lot of newer players were Nerco'ing older thread on their first or second post. Joining the forum only to be hit with a Warning to read the rules was frustrating so I went back and mass-locked older posts to prevent Necros.
I can unlock your Review, one moment.
For those curious about the difference between Florida / California accuracy…
Florida has significantly tighter dispersion, but far worse Sigma.
California has excellent Sigma, but dispersion on par with other BB’s.
It’s hard to argue properly which is “better”, but I think it would be fair to summarize as: Florida is a long-barreled shotgun. The shots seem to land relatively in the same small area, but without much consistency around the central point where you click. California feels much more like you drop a “line” of shots that is wider, but more reliable at putting a shell exactly where you click.
You're welcome!
You can actually see all that for yourself in a nice and handy website called "Shiptool": https://shiptool.st/
You can compare ships of any tier and sort visually by a wide variety of metrics. It's REALLY nice when you want to sort of talk about the differences between what a ship is and how a ship feels.
California on paper stacks up very well, but people have a common theme that it feels worse than comparable ships.
You're right that MOST players won't feel much of a difference of 0.2 sigma, but I certainly will .
One of my most-loathed combinations is long-reload, low sigma. When the Chonky USN BB line and IT BB lines came out, Deadeye was a thing and the accuracy took that into account. Without it, the things just felt like a Jackson Pollack painting machine. As you likely recall, Kansas especially had an atrocious sigma of 1.5 and didn't have the slot 6 accuracy module to offset it, so it was just a nightmare. Kansas has since had a buff up to 1.7 and it made all the difference in the world.
I'd be curious to hear more of what that discussion was about.
As Boggzy said earlier, California shows the hall marks of being an uptiered New Mexico. She has better Sigma to account for that, but the shell caliber does suffer in the higher tier environment.
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One thing that does have to be factored is her AA. AA doesn't matter if there's no CV, so it's very normal for people to get used to reviewing ships in a non-AA environment. Unfortunately, this is a problem because AA is part of a ship's Power Budget, and it's literally factored into the fuller design concept of the ship. For instance, Musashi is a Tier 9 Yamato in part because power was pulled out of her AA as a concession to allow her to down-tier, although that change has no bearing if there is no CV or the CV never has/takes the opportunity to exploit that weakness.
Other balancing differences are:
Positives
California has 3.8km more gun range (16.1km to 19.9km)
.7km less Detection
5,100 Additional Health
More than Twice the AA in her Mid and Short range, with roughly 50% more long range Continuous
5 Flak instead of 3 (which isn't that important)
35mm Plating Torpedo Belt
Bounce and HE Shatter potential
Citadel which is Very Below the Waterline.
Citadel is not angled to better protect against shell drop-angles.
Negatives
.5 knots slower
2.8 sec slower Full Rudder Traverse (1.4 seconds from Mid to Full Port/Starboard)
5% less Torpedo Protection
.6km larger Aerial Detection
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It does look like the majority of her differences are in her tankiness (minus the 5% reduction in Torpedo Protection). Also, she had a significant range increase of 3.6km base which allows her much more comfortable shelling distances, especially with the Slot 3 Range Upgrade.
I think you might want to consider her damage as less important as her immovability through Armor and AA. Part of being a Tier 7 Battleship is being uptiered and overmatched, so that would certainly be a concern. We'd probably have to pull Potential Damage data to see what she routinely pulls in that because of the better armor. Unfortunately, I just don't have time to look at this right now. I'm trying to grind out some "Get done before Monday" stuff at the office and it's... 1 hour until it's Monday.
No, I'm comparing the New Mexico to the California.
Typically damage is reduced when ships are overly hard to kill. Longer living ships last a longer time, so the damage they do builds up over that additional time.
Looking at the California reveals some nice Armor and amazing Citadel specs, so it's likely she just overperformed in testing by virtue of living longer than expected.
Florida Citadel Height. Note how high above the water it is:
California citadel height. Notice how extremely under the water is in. Like, surprisingly below the waterline:
You'd almost think the middle deck was part of the Citadel too, but it's not.
35mm can bounce shells from a Shikishima. Also, it shatters 203mm HE, though I think HE pens on Torp Protection don't yield damage so that's likely moot.
Also the Cali has a 31mm Deck armor covering the Rear which will bounce shells under 443mm. So, if she's stern-in, she's got a shell-trap with the raised deck, but that's still 31mm plate on the deck met with 35mm plate on the sides.
She can be overmatched with her 26mm stern, but her Citadel is super under-the-waterline hidden. There's even some plating covering it showing as Red in the post above this one.
Not every cruiser player has both the aim required to pin-point shell placement, not the in-game knowledge to know that California has an armored aft-deck.
Please do me a favor and look up your Potential Damage averages on your Tier 7 Battleships and post them here.
Not everything has to be an argument.
It's 11:33pm and I'm tiredly looking in a thread talking about a ship that Sailor_Moon talks about all the time. I'm trying to understand why the ship has less damage than she wants, and I feel like I finally found the answer. Her tankiness in terms of AA, armor, and citadel placement is likely the reason.
I'm looking at internal numbers, but as I don't do this normally it's time I shouldn't be spending on trying to figure out data sheets.
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I was actually writing up proposals/suggestions in regards to AA and Surface Ship interaction that come about from a recent 6 hour discussion with some CCs. I've gotten side-tracked into this. It's interesting, but I should probably go back to making explainer pictures and writing out concept statements.
This is one of the easiest ways to look at the situation. Does her armor help you live more than in other ships of the same Type and Tier?
If yes, then that's certainly a helpful sign. If no, then that's useful information as it might mean the increased survivability might not be enough in terms of actual play.
We disagree.
I didn't know California had a 31mm rear half of her Deck. I also didn't know she had 35mm Torpedo Protection as something in the foremost area of my thoughts. In general, I think US Tier 6 and 7 Battleship is "covered in 26mm" and don't give it more thought. So, I learned something today.
Other folks might know this, but California isn't often played and isn't a Tech-Tree ship you look at in terms of armor schemes.
Can you check the Average Potential Damage on other Tier 7 Battleships you play? Is it more? less?
Well, I've looked her up internally and her numbers look solid from our side. She may not be the best, but she's not the worst. In terms of placement in the pack, she's surprisingly in the middle of the pack. As in like, dead-middle.
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Best I can say is that every ship in our game has a slightly different itch that it's going to scratch. California is not a DPS Battleship, and while we could change her to make her that... it's not who she is (in our game). There are other Battleships that live a little more dangerously, or are known for other aspects, but California really is a solid ship in what she brings to the party. When she shows up, she matters.
Ah, that could certainly be a problem. She's built with a strong range advantage both in her Firing Range and her Sigma. If you choose to use her like a Brawling Battleship, you might not be playing to her strengths.
Remember. What's simple to you is not necessarily simple to other people.
That's a lot of time to muscle memory in responses to situations.
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When I went to school for Audio Engineering, I tried to help a student that was having trouble understand Signal Flow. Particularly in the "Use this machine, THEN that machine, THEN send it back to the console".
I made up an example for him...
"If I have a Car that I want to take to a Car Show, but it got in a small accident. Then I need to do three things... I need to get the paint fixed, I need to get the body fixed, and I need to take it to the car show.
What order do I do that in?"
To my surprise, the student Could Not Answer The Question. Not, needed to think about it for a while... but Could Not Think Procedurally. To me, it was natural... "Fix the Body, then paint it, then go to the car show", but everyone has different talents and his talent was not procedural thought.
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"Just because it's Easy doesn't mean it's Easy."
It's awkward to say this, but you might want to play a different ship that aligns better with your playstyle.
There are players that will want to play the Midway, but have her do Citadel damage with AP Bombs. That's not the Midway in our game, though, so they would need to play a Carrier with AP Bombs.
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We have a lot of Brawling ships in our game. They come with Turtleback armor schemes and secondaries and potentially other little considerations to help them out.
California is made to be a Ranged threat that is very hard to deal with.
Musashi and Yamato are also Medium-Long Range Battleships. The very slow turret traverse is fine when they're at distance from their targets, but actively hurts their ability to brawl. The IJN also suffers from citadel issues when brawling, so that's super scary in that sense, as well.
Looking through Tier 7 Battleships, the standouts in terms of get in and hurt something I'm seeing at the Scharnhorst, Hyuga, Genisenau, and Caracciolo.
I might suggest giving them a try and see how they feel.
I have literally no impact on WV '44 stuff, so extrapolating anything based off a conversation with me doesn't mean anything.
Yes, I remember you mentioning that you enjoy the WoWs: Legends version much more.
What I'm trying to say is about Our game, though. When we build a ship, it's designed to a purpose. It's going to have a Victory Condition (IE: a way that it works best). California's tankiness, range, and sigma show that her strength is ranged combat. It's perfectly ok for her strength to be ranged combat. By all accounts, she does that very well.
WoWS: Legends may very well have built her to a different set of Victory Conditions. It may be that there are less ships there and she fills a different role? I'm not versed on WoWs: Legends. If you enjoy her setup there, then I'm encouraging you to find the ship in our selection which holds a similar role in our game, as you'll probably find a play experience that you really, really enjoy.
I realize you may have a very powerful connection to the California, but she was designed as a part of the larger puzzle that makes up our game. Usually, there needs to be an extremely compelling reason to change the pieces that make up the puzzle, especially when they seem to fit really well already like the California does right now.
Part of me tries to make a point and think of the playerbase on whole. Not in a positive or negative light, but to make sure that I keep myself grounded. We have new players that join this game every single day. It's an overwhelming game and there is a massive amount of raw information to process as you play, even when it's as simple as stopping yourself from constantly updating your aim to look over and see if what the Pen or Non-Pen ribbons say.
Sure, it's muscle memory after you do it for months, but it's still a process of learning how to do it. I have to do my best to remember folks still have to move along that process. Forgetting that and only considering high-level play is nice from a balancing angle, but it can inhibit understanding what actually happens in the giant ball of chaos that is a Random Battle.
I'm not sure why that would be. I'm explaining a basic design process that is used across a wealth of games. It's also used for machines and anything conceptual really.
When you set out to make something, have an idea of "Why do I need this?" and "What will it do?"
California's play pattern fits a role of 12 gun 356mm shell long-range Tier 7 ship. She is tanky, so she's made to be more about being a consistent presence with a concerning salvo.
She achieves this role.
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Sailor_Moon is mentioning that she would like California to also fulfill another role. Does California need to fulfill a second role? If so, why?
Based on what I've seen when looking into her, she's a solid performer. I don't personally see why she needs to be better simply to be stronger for the fun of it. She's quite capable as is.
So, I'm relaying that information.
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I realize buffs are always nice, but game balance doesn't stay balanced when things get buffed simply for fun instead of for game health reasons.
I've seen that you reference Damage Done often. This is why you would like her to have a faster reload because it would allow her to reach higher Damage markers.
The "PR" stat used by 3rd party sights highly weights damage and kills, but that is not a stat we use internally. We look at the breadth of what a ship does, and our internal markers show her as a solid performer in the middle of the other Tier 7 Battleship options. While her damage may be lower than you want, she brings more to the game than just damage.
Please allow me to ask this in a different way.
If you are asking for the California to have more damage, why does she need more damage to matter? Would giving her better turret traverse make her matter more in her intended role?
Why do you feel that the California is in need of assistance when you have played her over 500 times and hold a 55% Win Rate with her? Doesn't this argue that she's capable of showing up and consistently performing?
I'm similar in that I prefer mid and close range, too. I'm really not someone that enjoys trying to feel out a 15+ second shell flight time and I prefer to leave that to the people that enjoy floaty shells and prediction.
What I'm trying to say is that we have a variety of ships and all of them have their own best playstyles. Players may want to have Playstyle X on Nation Y, but this would end up causing ships to be redundant at they would overlap and both do the same thing. As such, it's best to consider what experience you want and then find the ship that best fits that experience. No ship will great at everything, and ideally you'll always have parts of a ship that you like a lot while having parts of a ship that you don't. Balancing measures insist that everything have strengths and weaknesses to make sure it's a rounded experience and no one thing wins over everything else.
You are correct in that having better Turret Traverse would allow her to brawl better. But she's weak in brawling situations by design due to her Turret Traverse. This forces the player into a situation when picking the ship of knowing they have good Long-Mid range capabilities, but poor Short-Range capabilities. This is an intended choice as we have other ships which more comfortably fit the Medium-Short Range role.
That could be changed and her Short-Range capabilities could be increased, but the question isn't "Couldn't it be better?" it's "Does this need to be better to allow her strength to succeed? Does this still allow her weakness to exist?"
Arguably the citadel being so low in the water means she makes a great brawler by default, so helping the Turret Rotation may actually allow her to become over-capable in the Short-Range while she's already built for Medium-Long.
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Battleships are certainly about damage, but they're also about influence. Being tanky is influential, and having the threat of a long-range broadside is too. While Dolphin says she's not stealthy, having the potential so have an 11.8km Detection alongside a 27.6km Firing Range with Spotter Plane can certainly provide some surprise shots.
Not all Battleships are made to tank to the same degree. While every Battleship should be tankier than a Cruiser, that doesn't mean that they are rely on being able to lead the charge and face-tank all the incoming fire that is sent their way. It depends on what their intended playstyle is, and also what ball of chaos is happening in the Mid/Late game that requires pushing the F-it button and shoving it on in anyway.
The Detection of a ship means she's able to hide effectively. Ships do not need to play near or next to their Detection Ranges. High-end players often use Battleship range to allow them the ability to disappear between salvos.
Also, 11.8km Detection is likely smaller than is needed, so this would help in freeing a Commander to pick a different talent instead of using 4 points there. The base detection on California is quite nice.
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I might not be phrasing my point well enough.
I recognize that she CAN brawl. The concern is that if her being able to brawl would be too powerful for the ship overall, as she's not designed to brawl.
When you design away the weaknesses of a ship, you are only left with strengths. This is a dangerous thing to do as weaknesses are required to hold back a ship and make it a choice among peers instead of an obvious choice that wins out over others.
The easiest way to get me on board with you on the California buff-train is to help me understand why you feel she is underperforming.
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Telling me that 34 seconds feels slow doesn't help me because she's been shown to be a solid in terms of performance at her tier. Her damage may be less than other battleships, but her Win Rate and other performance characteristics are performing.
Telling me that you feel her secondaries are underwhelming doesn't help me either because she's not made to brawl. This is evidenced by the slow Turret Rotation in terms of design concept.
Telling me that 26mm armor isn't very appealing is something I'm aware of, but it's a fairly standard concept for the Tier and she is still meeting performance characteristics that place her in the middle of the pack for Tier 7 Battleships.
I need you to help me understand the following statement:
"The California cannot succeed in the game right now because [reason]."
If I have that information, and it checks out as correct, then a buff is required to allow her to be able to be played. That is something I can represent internally in arguing for a change.
This isn't a court-room, but I need a solid argument in order to win a case. Right now, I'm telling you directly that California is middle-of-the-pack which means she's quite successful in terms of a balancing point of view. She's literally balanced as compared to her peers.
Yes, I purchased her literally because of Sailor_Moon so I could try her out. That was a long time ago, but I played her a few times after I did my grind in the Oklahoma on stream.
I looked her up in internal data a few hours ago. This is why I say that performance-wise she's middle-of-the-pack, because she IS. She's bang-on centered amongst her peers.
I'm going to ask you to stop insulting me like this. I'm quite honestly not a mouthpiece that just gives talking points.
Conversations with me are very much conversations with me. I'm an oddity in that I actually believe in the balancing concepts and power budgeting that we use. I do genuinely believe in it and mean what I say.
We have an excellent product and our die-hard community does really reflect that.
I can stream my adventures in the California just like I streamed my games in the Oklahoma. That'll be another day, but I can certainly do that, sure.
Ok, maybe I'm seeing the disconnect. I'll try to put this in a picture format.
This is an off-the-cuff picture to represent strengths and weaknesses:
This is also similar in concept to port "Stats" where Survivability, Artillery, AA, and others are given a catch-all Number for an at-a-glance idea of the power for each category. Experienced players will known there's a lot more then just the number, but it's useful for explanation purposes.
According to the Power Budget picture above, we can deduce that her Secondaries, Maneuverability, and Special Threat capabilities are all low. She can't overmatch other battleships and even some cruisers depending on who she faces. These are all intended to be weak points and are supposed to create a "Deficit". This allows room to accentuate her Health, her Armor, and her long-ranged Threat.
Ideally, a player in this ship would only ever have to play Mid-Long range as that's where she excels. However, we have an attrition-based game and teammates get sunk, so she may absolutely be stuck in a position where she's pulling duty she's not really designed for. She may be able to do it, but it doesn't mean she's made to excel at it.
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If we give her a faster reload, we make an already capable long-range threat situation even stronger. Does she need that? Maybe. Currently she seems to be working with an over 50% win rate, though not by much.
If we give her a better turret traverse that makes her close-range threat stronger. Does she need that? Maybe. Currently she seems to be working with an over 50% win rate, though not be much.
It's not about the fact that she'll still have poor speed, lackluster secondaries, or any of the other weaknesses that she was built with. It's about why she needs larger strengths? You say she needs them because she honestly feels lackluster. TOO lackluster. So it's not a performance issue so much as a feel issue, which is absolutely relevant.
Still though, if we give her +12% more damage and +33% more turret traverse, then you'd have to see significant things disappear from her at the same time because currently she's in the middle of the pack. It's possible that her being there means that all Tier 7 in general are in a rough spot, or it means she's correctly tuned to "Feels great, but also feels bad" levels of "Is this the right tool for the job? or do I pick [other ship] instead?"
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Also, Goodnight!
I'm not asking anyone to aggregate data. I'm asking for a reasoning as to "Why does X needs love to be successful?". Spoken a different way, "Why is X unplayable and how can it be made playable?"
The human-side of the equation is very important, and I fully believe Sailor_Moon is frustrated by the California. The problem is that a study revealed that average person feels content with a 70% win rate. This is perfectly fine as nobody will be surprised to hear that people enjoy winning more than they lose, but it's important to recognize the Sailor_Moon is frustrated by a ship which yields a 55% win rate for her. By that information alone, we can directly see that the ship is working in her favor.
If the argument is instead that she should be able to achieve a higher win-rate than she already has but her ship-of-choice is limited in such a way as to make that not possible... the top %5 on wows-numbers for NA pull a 71.92% win-rate. It's a lot less than the Hyuga at 79.38%, but it's still quite a high number and would argue that the ship is capable of doing significant things, albeit in the hands of only 5% of the population. So, this is also something to consider because it further reinforces the idea that the ship isn't inherently underpowered and unplayable, because it is playable and can do well.
Chobi, you have to remember also that Ahskance sits next to me in the office. He and I have talked about specifically this topic, this ship, and this THREAD even multiple times. I have played more games of California than he has and I understand it as well.
Just because he has 3 battles in it doesn't mean he's speaking without reason. All the information and experiences that I shared with Sailor Moon in this topic and her previous I also shared with Ahskance - only in person.
21 battles is plenty for any seasoned player to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a ship in general.
Again, I'm happy to go to bat for something where I understand there being an issue. Currently, I'm not just not agreeing with you that she needs more damage or more comfortable brawling.
Comparing her damage to other ships may reveal that she does less damage in general, but the full picture of a ship is measured by the whole package. Her range and other aspects are important to factor, even if they don't translate directly to damage.
Please don't take offense.
Again, the biggest thing which helps me is to have hard data or concepts as to why something is NOT working. I have to be able to relay what is failing about a concept in order to generate the need for time to be set aside to repair/fix the problem. This is the trouble with relaying "feel", although "feel" is very important as well. In the end, getting active design team time requires to exposure of an issue in a demonstrable way which can be recognized and addressed by others.
There is a lot of community pushback against ships which have lower damage but higher utility/safety. This is demonstrated by Dutch Cruiser adoption as the air-dropped bombs are hard to land and the guns are not regarded as amazing. They have other aspects like tankiness, concealment, and AA which allow them to be impactful, but often these aspects are not as enjoyed as damage from players. It's a very hard situation to effectively communicate strength in hard-to-see metrics.
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You tagged Boggzy earlier and he tends to be very interested in damage and damage impact as that coincides with his playstyle. I'm more support-focused, so I personally weight damage less in terms of importance. He's probably the better CM to pitch on trying to push for a Damage Buff. I've already stated multiple reasons on why I believe California's lower damage averages are normal in terms of typical game design balancing practices.
Well look - Ahskance and I are two different guys, but we are friends who communicate differently. Sometimes he helps me with my communication, sometimes I help him with his. For both of us, things do have to boil down to numbers at the end of the day because, when a ship is being rebalanced, it's a number value that changes to affect the balance.
Let me put it this way, there are two ways of describing a problem: High-resolution and Low-resolution. Both have extremely important uses, so please don't think that I'm trying to discount either - only to better define their uses.
A low-resolution point takes "feeling" more into account to describe something that is difficult to define. Saying, "California doesn't FEEL tanky" is low-res, because it's not sharpening anything. That doesn't mean it's wrong.
For example, Grosser Kurfurst has some of the strongest armor schemes in the game and yet.... doesn't FEEL tanky to me. The reason is two-fold: one is because the superstructure is huge and big enough to eat full-pens if the shells have enough "room to explode". The other is because the forward-facing turret angles encourage players to expose more side in order to fire all their guns - the same goes for the secondaries. That means you are more likely to eat full-pens in your armor as you open up to shoot those weapons. In this case, the "it doesn't feel tanky" is actually a factor of player behavior.
A high-resolution point would be tying a specific outcome or affect to a specific cause, which can sometimes miss the overall landscape that comes from a low-res approach.
For example, Oklahoma is often considered terrible as a BB because it's guns have the lowest penetration (ever I think) T5 and above. The result is that the Oklahoma struggles to citadel other battleships or even pen certain armor at close-ranges. This is true! What it's missing is that the Oklahoma is uniquely adept at landing citadels on light / medium cruisers, which tend to be the most common at mid-low tiers. Thus, the Oklahoma is designed specifically to slap cruisers without overpenning and close against enemy BB's with it's strongly protected citadel and good secondaries. You can still deal huge damage to BB's by hitting the weaker upper belts. Again, even though the high-res point is technically correct, it's missing it's place in the low-res landscape.
With regards to California, I suspect a big part of your frustration is that the ships with big salvos and long reloads often feel "all or nothing" when it comes to landing shots and acquiring damage. Start thinking about California less as a BB that should be going toe-to-toe with other BB's and think of her more as a BB designed to slap cruisers with AP and whittle down BB's with HE, albeit not as well as a KGV or Lyon.
We don't balance to popularity, though. Buffing a ship simply to sell more of it is dangerous and greedy. That's a scary practice to promote :\
Some design concepts will naturally work better in terms of the meta and how the game happens to play at any given time. California was designed for an area which is a bit more utility focused then other ships at her tier. This is a perfectly normal and perfectly ok thing to do from a balancing standpoint. As for additional damage helping her to move higher in the pack of the peers, that would just be a straight buff. According to her win rates and internal metrics, she's already showing as very balanced, so this would tip her directly in the direction of having more than she needs.
Its awkward to look at it this way, but a well-balanced ship should have you picking her for her strength while being actively aware of her weaknesses. When you choose a tool for the job, there should be an actively understood downside to picking that tool which makes sure you are spending effort on the decision-making process of which tool fits the job best. In a single-player experience, a player has no real restrictions as they can excel to an unlimited extent, but in a multiplayer process there is gating via power budgeting.
No. This was a narrative that was spun off this Q&A that continues to poison discussions to this day.
Popularity is something that can help us understand how liked or disliked something is to play, but it will never be a sole balancing characteristic.
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The fear was that CVs would be buffed to entice players to play them, but CVs have been nerfed repeatedly over the years that followed. Why? Because Game Health matters more than any ship's popularity.
Buffing based on popularity is synonymous with Pay-2-Win tactics. Pay-2-Win kills games dead and should never be embraced.
Please do understand that, at the end of the day, things have to result in NUMBERS. I may have a more prosaic way of describing experience and feelings than he does, but I will translate that all into numbers at the end of they day because that's how the game is created.
It's reeeeeeeeally difficult to quantify non-obvious qualities of a ship. California's citadel is so far below the waterline that it's almost impossible to hit without big shells and plunging fire. How do you quantify that?
Cali's damage numbers are in the middle of the pack, btw according to WoWs-numbers. Middle-of-the-road damage numbers are not enough to warrant a balance change.
Hyuga's damage output is top-of-the-pack in general - probably because it has a reload-booster to help secure damage and kills. It's armor is also thicker overall, but weaker in terms of protecting the citadel. What does that mean? It's easier to citadel but more resistant to HE.
California at T7 players much like Montana does at T10. Neither has a shell caliber that's likely to overmatch most cruisers of it's tier. Monty may overmatch the nose more often than Cali, but most cruisers at T10 have 30mm decks and upper hulls that are not overmatched - meaning a Montana generally still needs to hit a relatively flat target to really feel that OOMPH. California has the same requirement. Before anyone dogpiles a comparison of Monty/Cali - YES, I AM AWARE THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. The way the gunnery handles is similar enough in terms of how it succeeds most often as to warrant the comparison of use.
How are you asserting that California is unpopular?
But where are you getting that data is my question?
Correct, we do remove ships that are "too popular". It's an odd term, but it means that we get concerned when the same ships show up in game after game after game. It can hurt the variety and replayability to feel like you are just experiencing the same thing over and over.
Removing ships like that is quite different than buffing ships to try and generate sales, which is the allegation that was made in regards to the Summit video's Q&A section.
Thanks for sharing that! I am not able to see where the timespan is listed for these. If you could share that or at least direct me to it in the images I'd appreciate it.
Earlier I heard the logic that it's unpopularity should be used as an indicator that it needs buffing. The unpopularity is now being defined as lack of games played compared to other ships. According to your first image, the Hyuga and California are functionally identical in games played and # of owners. By the logic presented earlier, Hyuga is unpopular and needs to be buffed accordingly, even though Hyuga is #1 in terms of damage and winrate.
This is why I take issue with "unpopularity" as an indicator that a ship needs buffing.
Yukon is bottom of the pack, but Yukon is an absolute monster of a ship and buffing it would be an irresponsible mistake, in my opinion.
True! But winrate is often a very important metric as it does suggest overall what something is capable of given enough time.
Colorado has the worst WR of all T7 ships. Does that mean CO is terrible? Maybe... it could also be a factor that new NA players go up that line first because OOOOOOH MUH IOWA! So they "learn" how to play Wows on the line and end up tanking the stats for the ship.
We can delineate internally how ships perform based on account battles and whatnot, of course.
You know, Sailor_Moon - it occurs to me that you may have the same issue I do: "that big salvoes with long reloads aren't FUN". That's not fun to me. Having a massive broadside with a long reload means that a high-degree of game knowledge and experience is required to see positive results. That's not fun for me because I tend not to like "all or nothing" style stuff. But there are TONS of other ships out there that fit the playstyles I like more. Gneisenau actually fits it perfectly. If you spec Gneis for main battery you get a remarkably accurate BB with the best armor scheme at T7 and torpedoes. You get to close in, shrug damage, and torp something - which is what I like
Right but here's the thing:
1. Fun to play is subjective. YOU may not like it, but others do. I have fun playing it because it's not as straight-forward as some other ships. That's fun for me.
2. Her performance issues don't show up as anything out of the ordinary numbers-wise, so I can't take this and do anything with it.
3. You use this line of logic a lot, but again it doesn't translate into anything. If we arbitrarily buff ships to make sales then we're P2W - which is NOT ok.
4. Again, you discuss "important to the community", but this is not an issue that comes up often in our feedback outside Sailor_moon, whom we like enough to take time to chat with here in this thread
5. You often talk about "business opportunities" for us, but I encourage you to be wary of this line of thinking. We don't balance ships based on how much we're going to sell - we balance on health of the game. Buffing a ship to increase sales is maybe the single worst reason to buff a ship I can think of.
I appreciate your concern for our sales, but our balancing considerations do not take sales into account - nor should they ever.
Well then we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
As I said before, we don't use popularity as a sole stat concept to balance to. Years ago, the Summit Q&A section was spun to make it sound like we do, but we don't.
Again, there is no buffing a ship just to try and get people to play it. If the ship gets buffed, it's because it showed a need to be buffed in its design issues.
Just because you're going to hear a variety of people insist a false narrative is true will not make it true. It's a talking point that's existed for years, despite being wrong.
It's a remarkably fine art. Asymmetrical game design is really tough so finding ways for everything to interact with each other on a base level can be extremely hard. Once you find the areas that work, there's a lot of trying to color inside the lines while still making things which are innovative and interesting. Some things will work out better than others as a result.
Buffing and Nerfing in isolation can be viewed as easy and safe, but it gets extremely complex when it feeds back into a chaotic game. It's like introducing something new to an ecosystem and then having to watch to see if it disrupts the balance of nature that's grown to exist there. That's why small buffs that seem like nice Quality of Life buffs might not happen, because there's the concern of the ripple effects altering more than just the intended area.
The thing that's very hard to express is that Mouse was not wrong when she described the situation in the game...
In effect, the nature of our Asymmetric game is that players are put in variety of very, very different ship concepts, and yet each player still gets to play and contribute and matter. What Mouse alludes to is that there is So Much Chaos that occurs that it's rarely about being able to just identify a single trend or not. Everything is connected like an ecosystem and the math and results ripple far and wide.
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The part of all this discussion that is the most mind-blowing is that from what I saw internally, California is currently one of the best representations of an actually Balanced Ship. It's not overperforming or underperforming, it's pretty bang on middle of where she's supposed to be.
This can be extremely frustrating news, because in general, balanced ships can feel lackluster because you'll often be very aware of what they can't do. That's literally by design.
Some ships will underperform because they can't find their sweet spot to play to their victory condition, or the meta is really wrong for their usage... so those ships may need direct assistance to overcome an actual hurdle which prevents them from mattering. Other ships will overperform because the meta perfectly caters to their victory condition, or perhaps they were just overtuned in testing... so those ships may need direct reductions to reduce their ability to be overbearing.
In general, it's a living game so everything is ALWAYS in flux. It's why there literally is no perfect balance in games like this since player choice alone can move to a different style of gameplay overnight and suddenly each ship is very different in terms of capability when compared to the new meta.
I don't believe it would upset the state of Tier 7 Battleships or anything, so in that sense it would likely be a harmless thing to do.
However, it would also be looking at a correctly balanced ship... and then deciding to unbalance it by making it stronger. That's a very strange decision to undertake.
Yes, it is extremely hard to make something that is both balanced and has a really enjoyable play-pattern, especially when many players translate fun as power. It's magic when you find that combination, but it sure as heck isn't easy.
The thing that I learned through this process is that California is sort of a Tier 7 Montana in terms of long-range 12-shell throw-weight. Also in the sense that Montana doesn't quite have the overmatch she once did, so it's about finding that's long-shots and threat lines.
Personally, I don't enjoy floaty shells or long, predictive shots... but there are absolutely players that do. I believe Potato Quality landed a 30+km shot in a King of the Seas match that was a massive play, for instance. It's a style that the Montana offers which other ships don't necessary bring to the table.
And before the 30 second reload or turret traverse is brought up, Montana is a Tier 10 so she's going to have more "technological advantage" in general. However, her sigma, dispersion, ranged shell flight, shell number per volley, and long range concepts are very similar in that sense.
As Mouse pointed out earlier, the game is one giant ball of chaos. I should probably find a Jeff Goldblum chaos meme from Jurassic Park.
You can make predictions of what will happen after you see what happens when similar things or adjustments are done on similar things... but the only real way to know what happens when you plug different variables into the math soup is see what happens. Over and over and over. In that way, chaos becomes measurable, to an extent.
Found the meme:
I don't play WoWs: Legends so I can't speak to that product.
Are all these things the same there as compared to here?
California's Health
California's Armor Scheme
California's Citadel Placement
California's Heal
California's Throw Weight
California's Speed
California's AA
California's Rudder
California's Torpedo Protection
Other Tier 7 Battleships in that game
Are they the same as in our game?
Are there are many options/playstyles?
Are the maps as big there as here?
Are the team sizes the same?
Are the time expectations the same?
Are the threat levels of each ship type the same?
Every piece of the above matters in terms of setting the environment that their version of the California is let loose in. There are MANY more variables as well, but I'm not going to make a meme of it.
My gut assumption is that WoWs: Legends has a lot of subtle differences between their product and ours and that the California there fulfills a different role than the California here.
If you make a steak and use the correct amount of seasoning, you will have a "correct" steak.
Your guests may prefer it cooked with more seasoning, so you could put more on the steak and it may still be ok. It may even be more enjoyable to the guests which prefer more seasoning when the steak is cooked.
However, if cooking is an art, and that art's best understanding for the right amount of seasoning is X, then you would be deviating from a known to an unknown.
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Game Design is an art. Our Designers are artists. Being able to navigate the ball of chaos that is designing for Random Battles is extremely difficult, especially with new concepts.
You can disagree with our artists because all art is subjective, but if we are the company that makes the formula used in our recipe... we are allowed to believe in our formula as yielding a good product.
World of Warships is a great product. We wouldn't have spent literally hours on this discussion if it wasn't.
I did end up taking Brisk when I did a leaderboard push on Oklahoma. It was nice for early positioning.
No worries. I was only making a direct logic statement.
Artists craft a formula -> Formula is used -> Product is good.
Therefore, formula seems sound.
Not really. WoWs: Legends is its own product with its own style of balance. Direct comparisons between products are unlikely to yield anything as a result of different teams doing different things albeit in a similar space.
Yes, the level of passion is commendable. The problem is more about the "chaos soup" of numbers.
If the game works, then people will play it. If the game doesn't work, then people will not. Small changes are unlikely to break the concept of the game, but every change is important because of the ripple effects they can have. It's a tricky balance in figuring out when to step in and balance.
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I'm just a guy that collects feedback and gives information both ways. For my money though, I'd rather bet on a car which is tuned for longevity then a car that is tuned for fun. Longevity is consistent performance, experience, and return of investment (time, effort, money) whereas fun is often fleeting as it's an incredibly hard concept to successfully pin down.
Fun is taken into account in the base premise of the ship and the experiences of testers and players. Fun is relative though, and there was another player earlier in the thread that was very forceful in his belief that California fits him very well and that he doesn't not want her changed at all. So while you may feel she is lacking, it doesn't mean others aren't finding her fun in other ways.
For our part, game health is going to be one of the highest and most important aspects of our game. Without the core game, there is nothing, so the game health must be weighted above all else whenever possible.
Also, I realize you are frustrated with the California (as that is the purpose of this thread), but you have played her over 500 times. While you might have enjoyed that experience more with desired buffs to the ship, you cannot deny that you've gotten quite a lot of value and entertainment out of your purchase.
AA could be weighted too heavily. It's worth noting though that the Kremlin lost half her AA mount health in a balancing pass and went from being a mandatory pick in competitive to a "conditional on no CV" pick in competitive. So the AA clearly has importance.
I don't have a direct answer to that question.
At this point in the game's life, there are a lot of pre-established examples and precedents to use when coming up with new ships. As such, you have damage numbers, health numbers, and other metrics to compare to while coming up with a base design concept. Picking values that seem within the ranges that have already been shown to work and then testing will reveal how close or far off the power weighting is. This is one reason why ships in test can vary so wildly as something which seems fine can rapidly be determined to not work out given the greater picture/situation.
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This is why Submarines have been in testing for such an extended period of time. Not because of "power budget" per se, but because there are no years-old established concepts to draw from when crafting a new piece for the game. So it's a lot of figuring out how a different piece can or cannot fit, which takes a lot of time and effort. Subs get closer each pass, but the amount of work left to do is likely still large because of how extremely complex our game is in terms of chaos/variables.
Carriers had a similar problem. There were old concepts that existed to give some kind of metric to work off of, but when CVs were redesigned it results in a very different system that has to be figured out in the glorious ball of chaos. CVs adapted in fairly quickly (7 months of active design work with follow-on work after), but I believe that's because of the years of prior conceptual stuff that gave a starting foundation for the design team.
Ships are balanced to Random Battles. I just used an example of AA being reduced and it having a real, tangible difference in player perception/utilization of a ship. That would argue that a ship's AA suite is more important than it might seem.
I'm always struck by the comparison to Armor, as Armor isn't designed to protect you from being sunk either. I can limit and reduce incoming damage, but all ships can be sunk regardless of armor. It's one of the balancing points of this game.
@LittleWhiteMouse @SaiIor_Moon
"Power Budget" is gaming term where your divvy out "Power" across a variety of characteristics. You can also create "Deficits" by removing power from areas to Underpower them so that you can use that to Power a different characteristic to possible higher than normal levels.
You see this in D&D characteristics having a "point budget" where you can pick certain stats to a point. You can then downgrade stats to upgrade others, but you lose more than you gain to avoid min-maxing to an extent.
If you'd like a video to watch regarding the concept/topic, this was something I pulled up on YouTube which is about the concept. It's a short video, so try it out.
Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXQzdXPTb2A
Industry Term. I'm not aware of specific math-to-"point" ratios. It's just a term that describes the use of a lot of characteristics being weighted relative to the other characteristics when forming a whole.
You've already described this process when you discussed taking away power in order to add power somewhere else. IE: Reducing Reload Time but trading AA power away to keep it balanced.
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The concepts for how to make it so that players could play extremely different types of ships is based in finding the areas where asymmetric capabilities sort of total out evenly-ish against each other. There may be advantages in match-ups and situations relative to other players/characters/ships encountered in the game, but the overall data from a relentlessly huge amount of actual gameplay ends up "mapping out the chaos" to allow balancing decisions to work. In a sense, the "math soup" is so thick that the easiest way to figure it out is to let the ecosystem run and observe it instead of hand-designing something so wildly complicated. This is why buffs and nerfs are such a big deal... they can have ripple effects that alter the ecosystem.
The concept of balancing by weighted characteristics is what is used in our game. I suppose there are a hundred different terms that could be used as a label for that concept. "Power Budget" is the term I've known and used for years, and you can listen to the term being referenced in the video I linked earlier.
That's how we make a Battleship exist in a game with a Destroyer while both players have an expectation of being able to matter and contribute to the game. It's not even, but with characteristics being finely tuned, we all get to matter regardless of what we play. Players will endlessly debate the actual balance of the system on whole, but that's the basic concept that allows an asymmetric game to fit together.
@Wolfswetpaws
You are preferring no ability to converse outside of extremely formalized terms?
Is there something about the concept that is not being effectively communicated?
Would you prefer I go out of my way to label "(industry term)" when using gaming industry terminology that is not directly from a WoWs lexicon?
Example: "The California has a significant amount of its power budget (industry term) in its AA as it is a hallmark of the ship."
Certainly. It is absolutely an issue if my language is not understandable.
This is my first role as a Community Manager. I do believe most elect to keep their communications infrequent and brief to avoid misunderstanding. As for myself, I've known that misunderstandings happen due to my sometimes strange word choices, so I've found myself communicating more as means to keep things clear (or try to).
I can try to back up and be more rigid with my language, but I am concerned it would result in less interaction and possibly more confusion.
Feel free to check out a HotFix episode which goes through our Balancing process and concepts directly.
Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye1Cr8qkar0
I can understand the frustration of the language barrier. Using industry terms or "hobby-speak" certainly has the potential to cause misunderstandings.
That being said, when I applied to be a CM I made a point of stating that information is a priority for me. I believe a lot of the misunderstandings and community mistrust is grounded in a lack of having that behind-the-scenes terminology and concept-work explained. So, if I can get good, accurate information out about what we do and why we do it, I believe this will help everyone.
We'll still have disagreements over decisions and choices because that's the nature of designing a world-wide product, but every little bit helps, ya know?
California was released about a year and a half after the CV Rework. Her AA was tuned with the CV Rework concept in mind.
She's designed as a fairly independent, long range Battleship.
"Can" and "Should" are two very different situations, though.
California having an aggressively hidden citadel can provide her a strong position in a knife fight, but her very slow turret traverse is an active hindrance to making that playstyle normal. She's got the throw-weight for it with her 12 guns, but she's going to need a lot of setup time and assistance from her enemy to give her that shot.
While yes, our Design Team could alter her turret traverse to make her much more adept at brawling, the problem comes in at "Should they make a second viable playstyle?" This returns to our earlier discussion about "Is this Needed because the ship is unable to function?"
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Giving a single ship multiple win conditions or play patterns can be problematic. Our ships are usually designed to a concept or play pattern so a player that gets the ship has an consistent way to play that other players can work around/against. Giving a single ship multiple play patterns means she out-values other ships that have a more clearly defined single role, and it also means she's less able to be countered and should be picked more often because of that.
If California is both a Sniper AND a Brawler, then she has no weakness in regards to range. She's in a position to always matter regardless of the situation she finds herself in. That just translates into raw strength as you directly have more options at any given time than other more "specific victory condition" focused ships.
The AA isn't really a "playstyle" as she's not fast enough to move and try to disrupt enemy flight paths like a Halland or nimble AA Cruiser might.
The AA enables her to operate independently in a way that non-AA Battleships cannot. Low-AA Battleships may require escort whereas California can use her freedom of movement to pick good firing lines that are away from allies and assistance.
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You really don't need to use HE at long range, the AP works fine against Cruisers that aren't bow-in. It works well against Battleships showing side, too.
As for Mid-Range brawling, I just can't agree with that as a strength for her. The Turret Traverse actively hinders that playstyle (which I realize is why you would like that changed).
I am absolutely thrilled with how this entire conversation has gone
I think where we might be getting stuck is that, generally speaking, ships need to demonstrate a failing in results before they are considered in-need of buffs. California just doesn't have any failings in performance results-wise that we can discern, so it's difficult to make a case why she needs a buff other than "it wouldn't hurt", and that's just not how things happen .
If I had my choice, Agir would have an ice-breaker and be basically unstoppable
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