[2019] Giulio Cesare 2: Electric Boogaloo (Response to SubOctavian)

Hey guys,
Just a few clarifications:
1. I personally don't have anything against GC, that's..a weird thought. I personally love the principle in game balance when a player can choose and play any ship from a particular group, and show more or less same efficiency, under condition that the ship is used properly. GC and several other premium ships show considerably better performance relatively to player's skill. This is not good for game balance health and it makes other ships in their respective group look and perform worse. And when that's just 1-2 such ships in the group it does not make any sense to try to buff the whole group instead of tuning down the "overperformers".

2. That said, game balance health is not the only factor, and my personal views are not a serious argument when making such a serious decision. For example, if the majority of players are really fine with 5-6 OP premium ships (surely this ship group will grow over years, but looks like our balancing got better over years, too - most of OP ships are quite old) AND if we see that small portion of OP premium ships do not affect the playerbase experience in a bad way - well, so be it. It can be a flaw for some, but if generally people are fine with this situation, and it's not damaging the game, why not. It's not like we want to push the changes no matter what. However, to determine the objective pros and cons is a challenge, especially with so much emotion involved.

3. I saw this opinion several times, so better clarify it again: nobody in the team really cares about selling these premium ships again. From "$$$" point of view it's much better to leave them alone and use on super rare occasions as a side bonus, as all premium ships generate their overwhelming majority of sales when they release. We're totally fine if ships like GC, Kami or Belfast appear only in tiny quantities (because some people just want them in their collection) and never see general sales. Also, I really don't think it's appropriate to claim that we follow "Sell OP ship, nerf it, sell new OP ship" scenario. We have dozens of premium ships in the game, and only 5-6 of them are really OP. That's normal balance deviation, same as with non-premium ships. If revenue was the main factor, we would probably just release a lot of OP Tier VIII ships - they're the most expensive and the most popular anyways. But there was never an intention to release an OP ship.

Do players want OP ships? Well, it's an open question. Just an example, though, from the times of GC live test:

Not blaming anyone, the balance is our responsibility, but there was and there is constant pressure for any premium ship to be OP from vocal part of community. Not absolutely disgustingly OP, but still OP. I often see the sentiment that objectively OP is considered 'normal and comfortable", while objectively good considered "meh" and okayish considered "bad". Most nerfs to live tested ship generate quite a lot of "my wallet is closed now", "I won't play this" and "I won't buy this" reactions. The problem is that OP ships surely feel much better and satisfying to play, and even acknowledging "I play this ship, and it's too strong" is a challenge for many players.

4. No decision has been made, and I really ask some of you to stop treating it as a fact. Any scenario is possible, and it will depend on testing results and our analysis. Can GC be tested as a nerf tier V? Yes. Can the plan to nerf her and other premium ships be ditched? Yes. This is what testing is for. And sorry, but I cannot feel sorry for testing or trying anything, as well as for openly informing the players about what and why we do. I cannot support the logic "the fact that they test a nerf is an insult" and don't see any constructive discussion coming out of it.

5. There was no policy that premiums ships should not be nerfed, and there was no promise that they cannot be nerfed. I understand why some people treat this as a broken promise - because we never tested anything like this seriously. But what I always said is that we avoid doing this at all costs - and that we did, and still do, and will continue doing.

6. I find both "they can do whatever they want, according to EULA" and "I don't care about EULA" highly irrelevant. We have EULA. It's a legal fail safe any game or software has. We're not going to use it as a tool to interact with you - the players. If we don't agree on something we will discuss it. If you are not happy with something, we will try to find a better solution. I sincerely thank all people who defend our decisions, plans or intentions for game balance, but we do not base it on EULA and I don't see that we ever will. So let's stop wasting our time discussing it. For me, as a developer, EULA is like a small personal nuke. It's good that it is somewhere in basement, but I don't ever want to see it in action, and don't consider it seriously as a way to interact with the world

7. I also think, for the sake of minimal objectivity, it's worth mentioning that we seek to provide better experience for premium ships owners, instead of sticking to "not to be changed" argument. With what I said about sales in mind, we individually buffed a lot of premium ships simply because we wanted people who support us to enjoy them for years, even if meta changes. There was next to none "economical" benefit in doing so.

SIms: buffed main battery reload, improved torpedo armament;


Prinz Eugen: buffed plating, added heal;


Indianapolis: buffed concealment and Radar, improved rudder shift and maneuverability;


Atlanta: added Radar;


Atago: added heal, buffed rudder shift;


Hood: improved sigma and AP fuse;


Warspite: improved turret traverse;


Tirpitz: improved armor, added fighter plane, improved secondaries;


Ash*taka: improved AP;


Kii: improved main battery reload and torpedoes.

And as far as I remember, all these buffs were quite welcome. Everybody loves buffs! Too bad proper "balancing" means using both + and -. I don't know how to approach any further premium ship buffs with the current sentiment, to be honest. A ship is not a car or mobile phone. A ship interacts with all other ships in the game, and its player interacts with all other players in a match. A ship is not a standalone product - the game is a product and any ship is a component of it. It's not the only way to look at it, but it's perfectly viable.

And to OP: sorry, but your definition of bait and switch is not compatible with any online game which is alive. It's convenient to make emotionally-loaded argument or bash us publicly, but that's it.

Thank you, and see you soon!

Most likely the approach that will emerge from GC testing will be universal and will set a precedent for foreseeable future. It won't be fair to touch GC, and not touch the ships you listed. It won't be fair not to touch GC and touch the ships you listed. That's why we're taking our time with the test and that's why I said several times we will take this decision very seriously, and all concerns and feedback will be taken into account.

Thanks for the solid and reasonable argument. I don't expect OP prems to really wash out of MM queue significantly compared to current state, though. The massive start sales and good player retention mean that they will remain played for years, and their episodic appearance in crates or any other special events doesn't affect it - this inflow is too small anyways. As for crates sales, I don't know, but it's a valid question we research atm. The second question would be: if such ships are super desirable drivers, are they desirable because of rarity (no other way to add them to the collection) or their battle performance (they are considered very strong).

Huh?
WG doesn't want to hurt their sales, and I'm not "playing dumb" about it. Also, a wonderful revelation for you: no company wants to hurt their sales.

Sorry, but I don't understand all this semi-threatening "I will put my $100 elsewhere"? I fully realize that paying players like you pay the bills. I value that, and thankful for that. Why is this an argument for game health discussion though? Why do you think it contributes to the weight of your statements? Should I, according to this logic, disregard the opinions of non-paying users? Or pay the attention depending on the check size? Sorry, I don't think it's fair.
As for your points:

As I said, any alternative ways after the general sales are gone are not really changing anything. The majority of ship sales are generated in the beginning, not 2 years later, and there is no point in hoping "we don't sell it anymore, it's fine". No, it's not fine. It's either accepting the fact there will noticeable % of OP prems in queue (a viable option, by the way) or not accepting it;


EULA already allows the changes to the game. As I said before, I'm not going to advocate for any changes using EULA as a tool. It's a legal fail safe, not the ground for community relations, and I don't know how hard should I hit my head against a wall to say "we will do this change, because EULA tells us we can";


Talking dates, I don't think there is a point in "we can adjust the ship for a period of six months". On the contrary, if we would create some kind of rules set I would (just theory here) add something like "this ship stats won't be changed in a negative way for at least 1 year after released", because you need to establish bulk stats and it overall gives better confidence in premium ships. But I doubt it's a viable way in the first place;


Why we're discussing CVs or subs here? They have nothing to do with the topic of discussion, as well as balancing ships doesn't interfere with other dev processes. Should we revert all buffs we did to various ships and stop considering any other buffs because "CVs and subs are more important"? I don't fairly think so.

And yet again, thanks for letting me know about other games. I know you can spend your money elsewhere. I know you can play other games. I'm not here to tell you "give us your hard earned money!" or "spend your life playing only our game". It's your choice. I respect any personal choice. So you can of course keep bringing this up, but I don't know what to do with this statement in discussion. If you think such statements as "I will go play No Man's Sky" invalidate my points, they don't. I don't mind you sharing these thoughts, sure, but they are not really helpful (IMO). Also, that's not fair discussion, because I most likely won't share my personal opinion of NMS and it's "comeback", as well as on other games - don't feel it's ethical in my position.

If you follow my activity you probably know I'm all for admitting the screw-ups and working on resolving their consequences.

But apologies for 4-5 premiums turning out to be OP from literally dozens and dozens of well balanced-ships? My apologies, but I don't know any PvP live game where the unit balance is perfect at any period of time. I also don't know any game design case in the industry of MMO where you don't have to make adjustments from time to time. Finally, it's very hard to feel sorry for...testing.
I think it's super important to admit your mistakes, but I also believe automatically admitting anything not popular or controversial a mistake and apologizing for it is...a mistake, and will only devalue any kind of open community interactions.

I am sorry, but I don't see anything I should apologize for. First of all, no action has been taken, and no decision has been made.

Second, distribution method does not matter. Some people purchased the ship originally, some got it for free, some got it from 1 crate, and some from dozens of crates. I don't consider rare ships in the crates "unethical", and don't understand why I should, tbh. That's the way to allow collectors to get them without overflowing the game with them. Some players want to have full set of ships, and of course, for crates, any ship like this is a unique item, so it's a win-win. Not even mentioning all other contents. The timing does not look good, I agree (recent sales + CV rework), but then you should also understand that we announced testing start - it can take months to make any conclusions, and there will be no perfect time to test it; there always be an excuse to postpone this question.

Well you are reading something else then.
I did not blame players. As I said, we're responsible for any changes to the game.

But if you think constant "oh my god, they nerfed it, now my wallet is closed" pressure during live testing any premium ship makes it easier to balance, you're wrong. That is not the most important point, but it's a point - a lot of players actively push for OP premium ships even when they don't participate in live testing, and a lot of players perceive OP ships as "comfortable" forgetting that their comfort sometimes means casually slapping all other ships in a group with less effort. That's just a fact, and no one it to blame here.

Eh, no? The test start was announced when it was approved. And we're not "going to nerf them". We're going to test various changes to GC, while analyzing the stats and community sentiments, to see if we need to do anything and how. I mean, you can paint us evil geniuses sitting in the basement and plotting how to sell stuff and then nerf it (for lulz, obviously), but that's not how it works.

So? The game was perfectly fine before boxes, and if they are banned in the industry, the game will be perfectly fine without them. Fortunately neither WoWS economy, nor WoWS progression system are built around loot boxes mechanics. It's a component, which will be dropped, if needed, and replaced with one of the alternative solutions, if needed. Both as a dev and a player, I think this issue is blown out of proportion, thanks to several games that centered everything in their game design around this mechanics, pushing it to absurd levels. Thanks, dear industry colleagues, I guess

P.S. WoWS is not a game played by kids, jFYI. Our audience is adult and mature, and I believe, capable of making adult and mature decisions.

I am here because I want to contribute to the discussion and engage with the players; because I believe that it is important for the game to become better. I respect our players, but I tend to say what I think, and accept everyone's right to agree or disagree, and to give their own argument. Not sure what should I deduct from your statement or how "more responsive" I should be. Just in case, to avoid any misunderstanding: I will happily ignore posts like this in future, as non-constructive and non-contributing. With all due respect, just hope it will save everyone's time.

***

Thank you all for the discussion. It was really useful, and I hope I did not came rude or something - sorry if my language was too direct. I don't think there is anything more to say on the topic now, but everything I heard or confirmed here, will be taken into account, and be sure that your opinions, even if I personally disagree with some of them, matter a lot.

Have a great day!