Changes to the Commander Skills in the Pipeline?

[Admiral_Karasu]

Did anyone notice the WG stream about the proposed changes to captain skills planned for the closed test on Oct 12?

[Ensign Cthulhu]

No. Would you like to elaborate on what you heard?

[Admiral_Karasu]

I really hate to do this but...

Spoiler

https://discordapp.com/channels/669128285527080961/1158413587983912991

Anyone willing to wade their way through that, you're welcome.

[Yedwy]

Let me guess - subs get buffs for survival skills and torpedo guidance and damage ones and CVs get incrased plane HP, better sacondary and AA skill integration and strike plane dabage buffs on the other hand surface ships get reduced AR and SE compared to now and more debuffs on the stronger skills?

 

[Aragathor]

The changes look good. Here's a formatted view:

 

Spoiler

With the release of Update 12.10, we plan to make changes to some of the commander skills for battleships, cruisers and destroyers. We have gathered both the statistical data and player feedback over time and reworked some of the outdated, unpopular or underperforming skills to make them more useful in battles.

Consumables Specialist (Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers - Line 1)
Removed the following effects:

Fighter consumable cooldown time: -10%
Spotting Aircraft consumable cooldown time: -10%
Defensive AA consumable cooldown time: -10%
Main Battery Reload consumable cooldown time: -10%
Torpedo Reload Booster consumable cooldown time: -10%
Added the following effect:

Cooldown time of all consumables, except 'Damage Control Party' and 'Repair Party': -7.5%  (for Unique commanders: -10%)*
The bonus also doesn't affect Specialized Repair Teams, Heavy Repair Teams and Fast Damage Control Team.

Now, this skill will affect a greater variety of consumables, which means that it will benefit the absolute majority of the ships. In order to balance this out, we decided to slightly decreased the bonus itself.

Preventive Maintenance (Battleships, Destroyers - Line 1)
Added the following effects:

Increases HP of AA guns : +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)
Increases HP of secondary guns: +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)

Super-Heavy AP Shells (Battleships - Line 3)
Added the following effects:

Fire damage received: -10%
Flood damage received: -10%

Improved Repair Party Readiness (Battleships - Line 3)
Added a new effect that can be activated:
Receive additional +1 charge of 'Repair party' for receiving 3,000,000 potential damage (once per battle):
Charges of 'Repair party': +1

Focus Fire Training (Cruisers - Line 2, Battleships - Line 3)
Added the following effect:

Immediate damage when activating the priority sector: +1.5%
Changed the following effects:

Airstrike armament reload time: -10% → -15%
Aircraft preparation time: -5% → -10%
When you activate the priority AA sector, enemy squadrons in its range immediately receive damage, based on the squadron's HP. At the moment, without using this skill, cruisers and battleships deal immediate damage equal to 3.5% of enemy squadron's HP, and the skills buffs it up to 5%.

Secondary Armament Specialist* (Cruisers - Line 3)
Renamed Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge to Secondary Armament Specialist and added the following effect:

Secondary Battery firing range +20%
There are cruisers that actively use their secondaries, however, there aren't that many skills that provide bonuses to them. This change will make this skill useful to a bigger pool of ships.

*not a final name

Furious (Battleships - Line 4)
Removed the following effects:

Main battery reload time: -5%
Dispersion of shells fired by enemies attacking your ship: +5%
Added the following changes:

Improves your ship's characteristics for each active fire and/or flooding onboard your ship.
1st fire/flooding - Main battery reload time: -10%
2nd and each consecutive fire/flooding (up to 6) - Main battery reload time: -5%
Fires and flooding can be extremely frustrating, especially, when you don't have a Damage Control Party up. This skill will partially compensate for the inconvenience by providing the ship a significant bonus to the main battery reload. Additionally, it can be combined with the updated Super-Heavy AP Shells to reduce both fire and flooding damage.

Dazzle (Destroyers - Line 4)
Added a new bonus to the activated effect: Reduces the accuracy of hostile fire directed at your ship and increases her speed for 15 s after your ship's been detected.

Ship speed: +8%

AA Defense and ASW Expert (Battleships - Line 2, Cruisers - Line 4)
Changed the following effects:
Battleships:
Continuous AA damage +10% → +15%
Damage from AA shell explosions +10% → +15%
Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -15% → -40%

Cruisers:
Continuous AA damage +20% → +25%
Damage from AA shell explosions +20% → +25%
Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -20% → -50%

With the release of Update 12.10, all players will have a 100% discount on the commander skill reset. All the details will be announced later.

Please note that all information in the development blog is preliminary. Announced adjustments and features may change multiple times during testing. The final information will be published on our game's website.

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Aragathor

[Aragathor]

15 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

Let me guess - subs get buffs for survival skills and torpedo guidance and damage ones and CVs get incrased plane HP, better sacondary and AA skill integration and strike plane dabage buffs on the other hand surface ships get reduced AR and SE compared to now and more debuffs on the stronger skills?

 

Nope and nope. The changes, while not incredibly exciting are ok.

The biggest change is the addition of a secondary skill for cruisers. It will add +20% range to secondary range. it's an addition to the effect of the skill Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge. So Aegir, Siegfried, Napoli, and Graf Spee, will get a double buff if you go that route.

Also, Consumables Specialist, will stop being so dented. It will give a flat bonus to all consumables save DCP and Heal.

 

PS: Here are some funny numbers for secondaries, with flag, skill, and module:

Toulon - 9,52km

Marseille - 12,54km

Graf Spee - 8,46km

Aegir - 12km

Schroeder - 12km

Napoli - 11km

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Aragathor

[Admiral_Karasu]

Interesting... if even half of these would be implemented it would profoundly change several aspects of the game. Some of them would make the game potentially faster paced, while others seem to focus on improving certain key areas of strength on different ship classes.

In other words, these are balance changes, not just captain skill rework.

[Nevermore135]

16 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

The changes look good.

Indeed, but still no PM for cruisers makes me sad…

[Nevermore135]

9 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

The biggest change is the addition of a secondary skill for cruisers. It will add +20% range to secondary range. it's an addition to the effect of the skill Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge. So Aegir, Siegfried, Napoli, and Graf Spee, will get a double buff if you go that route.

This is good for Napoli, but I question it’s usefulness on the other cruisers listed. That extra secondary range will be of limited use without some type of dispersion bonus, and Agir and Graf Spee also lack Napoli’s special main battery dispersion curve that makes passing on ASM1 much more palatable.

[Aragathor]

2 minutes ago, Nevermore135 said:

Indeed, but still no PM for cruisers makes me sad…

Yes, but I found the reply from Ahskance interesting:

 

Quote

Ahskance [NA] — Today at 5:01 PM

I do believe we explained our reasoning on this topic when it was last discussed. I can reiterate it here, though.

Module HP has some randomization to simulate/account for receiving critical hits. Rather than rolling for each shell's explosion to see if it's a critical hit (read: "larger than normal" hit), the module itself is adjusted to be more or less resilient via a less calculation-heavy method. Gun Turrets used to follow the same pattern, but that was changed some years ago.

As a CM, I can tell you the general community response to learning about the function was frustration. General issues cited were:

• Feeling of less control over your situation
• Concern over the large swing distance (x0.25 - x1.75)
• Comparisons to other mechanics (gun turrets being fixed)

We relayed the above feedback and don't have anything to announce on the topic. The game has functioned this way for years and years, which makes the topic a bit harder to evaluate than a recent or specific change.

They acknowledged the mechanic has been received more than poorly. The fact that he's candid about the negative reception, might mean they are looking at solutions.

Because before, they stonewalled anyone who raised the issue.

 

They might be feeling the pinch.

[Aragathor]

Just now, Nevermore135 said:

This is good for Napoli, but I question it’s usefulness on the other cruisers listed. That extra secondary range will be of limited use without some type of dispersion bonus, and Agir and Graf Spee also lack Napoli’s special main battery dispersion curve that makes passing on ASM1 much more palatable.

AFAIK Siggy, E-Girl, and Schroeder, have improved accuracy. As do the french super heavies.

Graf Spee is a meme entry, it would get a double buff with the skill, as it has usable torpedoes, and it lacks effective anti-DD guns. 8,5km secondaries would mitigate that.

[Asym]

3 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Interesting... if even half of these would be implemented it would profoundly change several aspects of the game. Some of them would make the game potentially faster paced, while others seem to focus on improving certain key areas of strength on different ship classes.

In other words, these are balance changes, not just captain skill rework.

They are designed to increase "Throughput" which will Lessen individual earnings no matter what you do.  Another "death by a thousand cuts..."  There is no future in changes like these or the entire skill tree changes themselves:  we earn less and are required to do more" than we did pre-change.

How this or any of the past changes help new players is beyond me.....  If they have no hope in advancing and are facing endless grinds, this game stalled now and will not grow 1 mm....  The veterans will leave because the game is stagnating IMO....  Now, Random Ops simply will produce less and that, will and has driven of a lot of veterans...

The games is cannibalizing itself to make money....  If this happens, well, it's time.

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 minute ago, Asym said:

They are designed to increase "Throughput" which will Lessen individual earnings no matter what you do.  Another "death by a thousand cuts..."  There is no future in changes like these or the entire skill tree changes themselves:  we earn less and are required to do more" than we did pre-change.

How this or any of the past changes help new players is beyond me.....  If they have no hope in advancing and are facing endless grinds, this game stalled now and will not grow 1 mm....  The veterans will leave because the game is stagnating IMO....  Now, Random Ops simply will produce less and that, will and has driven of a lot of veterans...

The games is cannibalizing itself to make money....  If this happens, well, it's time.

How did you derive changes to game economy from the items on the list of proposed stats changes?

[Verytis]

23 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

Super-Heavy AP Shells (Battleships - Line 3)
Added the following effects:

Fire damage received: -10%
Flood damage received: -10%
Improved Repair Party Readiness (Battleships - Line 3)
Added a new effect that can be activated:
Receive additional +1 charge of 'Repair party' for receiving 3,000,000 potential damage (once per battle):
Charges of 'Repair party': +1

Great change, but it really should be moved into its own skill.

I've always wanted to see a skill that increases the duration of a fire/flood, but decreases the rate of dmg.

If you make a skill that overall makes you take more dmg from a fire/flood, but suffer the dmg much slower. You'll have an excellent skill that'll go with "Furious" for a masochist build.

 

23 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

Secondary Armament Specialist* (Cruisers - Line 3)
Renamed Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge to Secondary Armament Specialist and added the following effect:

Secondary Battery firing range +20%
There are cruisers that actively use their secondaries, however, there aren't that many skills that provide bonuses to them. This change will make this skill useful to a bigger pool of ships.

This skill won't pass. At least not on first pass.

You will have ships like Schroder and Napoli that become straight up busted.

An entire balance pass would have to be done onto multiple ships to make this skill work.

[Nevermore135]

5 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

AFAIK Siggy, E-Girl, and Schroeder, have improved accuracy. As do the french super heavies.

Schroeder has standard German BB secondary dispersion (-20%), but Agir and Siegfried have standard secondary dispersion. Schroeder’s secondaries were sold with the same reasoning as the upcoming Scharnhorst’43: they have a high rate of fire but their dispersion is lackluster.

The French CBs have the same secondary dispersion as German CCs/Massachusetts, etc.

[Verytis]

4 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

How did you derive changes to game economy from the items on the list of proposed stats changes?

How do you think Mechfori worked? 🤣

[Asym]

6 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

How did you derive changes to game economy from the items on the list of proposed stats changes?

cause and effect.  A leads to B etc cetra.  I think that way and sometimes, it can be confusing to many.  Apologies.

[Verytis]

3 minutes ago, Asym said:

cause and effect.  A leads to B etc cetra.  I think that way and sometimes, it can be confusing to many.  Apologies.

This is one of those cases where you can argue for both, if you want to be pessimistic. There is always some straws to grasp at.
You can argue that commander skills having more effect makes them more mandatory and thus less player friendly.
On the other hand, you could also have commanders be worthless and not meaningfully change gameplay in anyway.

[Wulf_Ace]

Furious (Battleships - Line 4)
Removed the following effects: 

Main battery reload time: -5%
Dispersion of shells fired by enemies attacking your ship: +5%
Added the following changes:

Improves your ship's characteristics for each active fire and/or flooding onboard your ship.
1st fire/flooding - Main battery reload time: -10%
2nd and each consecutive fire/flooding (up to 6) - Main battery reload time: -5%
Fires and flooding can be extremely frustrating, especially, when you don't have a Damage Control Party up. This skill will partially compensate for the inconvenience by providing the ship a significant bonus to the main battery reload. Additionally, it can be combined with the updated Super-Heavy AP Shells to reduce both fire and flooding damage.

 

Furios looks appealing now.

Imagine this on British BBs, now you will have ultra amazing reload and then superheal to heal all those fires...

[Asym]

1 minute ago, Verytis said:

This is one of those cases where you can argue for both, if you want to be pessimistic. There is always some straws to grasp at.
You can argue that commander skills having more effect makes them more mandatory and thus less player friendly.
On the other hand, you could also have commanders be worthless and not meaningfully change gameplay in anyway.

I agree.  But, start at the Cruiser Line Split and follow the changes....  Technology expansion;  testing the market endurance; driving a new meta and deevolving the meta; changing skills in offering choices that actually limit you backwards to less than you had before (a global devaluation to increase throughput); the loss of existing "real value"in the Flags/camo changes; and, the constant push towards simplicity that drives up number of games player and compulsion exploits....  Making money, as games have been doing for over a decade now and the reason some of us are actually studying game history so as to not repeat it when AI driven games come out....

thanks

[Andrewbassg]

1 hour ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Did anyone notice the WG stream about the proposed changes to captain skills planned for the closed test on Oct 12?

Waat....

[Ensign Cthulhu]

16 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

How did you derive changes to game economy from the items on the list of proposed stats changes?

The design of the game economy and the impending death of WOWS are the bee in his bonnet (or is it the bat in his belfry?). 

When I was a kid, I went to see an art exhibit in which one of the items was a room covered in butchers' paper over which a network diagram had been drawn, tying together every pop culture conspiracy theory I'd ever heard of (you could follow links from Shirley MacLaine and UFOs back to the Kennedy assassination, for example). It was like Fox Mulder's fever dream before X-files was ever a thing. The part of Asym's brain that deals with WOWS lives inside such a room, where everything WOWS does ties back into the game economy somehow. 

26 minutes ago, Verytis said:

An entire balance pass would have to be done onto multiple ships to make this skill work.

There were planned changes to visibility announced recently, one of which was a change to the gun bloom of secondaries in smoke. 

[Aragathor]

4 minutes ago, Andrewbassg said:

Waat....

A discord only affair mate. In a time slot normally reserved for the daily commute back home, 5pm.

[Verytis]

7 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

There were planned changes to visibility announced recently, one of which was a change to the gun bloom of secondaries in smoke. 

iirc the change only affects open water? And since no ships have stealth secondaries by default, it required special conditions like cyclones.

 

But either way we have secondary ships that are already too strong and in no need of buffs. I expect some of those ships to have their secondary range nerfed, so they have to cough up 3pts from their build to get it back.

[Andrewbassg]

1 hour ago, Aragathor said:

The changes look good. Here's a formatted view:

 

  Hide contents

With the release of Update 12.10, we plan to make changes to some of the commander skills for battleships, cruisers and destroyers. We have gathered both the statistical data and player feedback over time and reworked some of the outdated, unpopular or underperforming skills to make them more useful in battles.

Consumables Specialist (Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers - Line 1)
Removed the following effects:

Fighter consumable cooldown time: -10%
Spotting Aircraft consumable cooldown time: -10%
Defensive AA consumable cooldown time: -10%
Main Battery Reload consumable cooldown time: -10%
Torpedo Reload Booster consumable cooldown time: -10%
Added the following effect:

Cooldown time of all consumables, except 'Damage Control Party' and 'Repair Party': -7.5%  (for Unique commanders: -10%)*
The bonus also doesn't affect Specialized Repair Teams, Heavy Repair Teams and Fast Damage Control Team.

Now, this skill will affect a greater variety of consumables, which means that it will benefit the absolute majority of the ships. In order to balance this out, we decided to slightly decreased the bonus itself.

Preventive Maintenance (Battleships, Destroyers - Line 1)
Added the following effects:

Increases HP of AA guns : +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)
Increases HP of secondary guns: +15% (for Unique commanders: +20%)

Super-Heavy AP Shells (Battleships - Line 3)
Added the following effects:

Fire damage received: -10%
Flood damage received: -10%

Improved Repair Party Readiness (Battleships - Line 3)
Added a new effect that can be activated:
Receive additional +1 charge of 'Repair party' for receiving 3,000,000 potential damage (once per battle):
Charges of 'Repair party': +1

Focus Fire Training (Cruisers - Line 2, Battleships - Line 3)
Added the following effect:

Immediate damage when activating the priority sector: +1.5%
Changed the following effects:

Airstrike armament reload time: -10% → -15%
Aircraft preparation time: -5% → -10%
When you activate the priority AA sector, enemy squadrons in its range immediately receive damage, based on the squadron's HP. At the moment, without using this skill, cruisers and battleships deal immediate damage equal to 3.5% of enemy squadron's HP, and the skills buffs it up to 5%.

Secondary Armament Specialist* (Cruisers - Line 3)
Renamed Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge to Secondary Armament Specialist and added the following effect:

Secondary Battery firing range +20%
There are cruisers that actively use their secondaries, however, there aren't that many skills that provide bonuses to them. This change will make this skill useful to a bigger pool of ships.

*not a final name

Furious (Battleships - Line 4)
Removed the following effects:

Main battery reload time: -5%
Dispersion of shells fired by enemies attacking your ship: +5%
Added the following changes:

Improves your ship's characteristics for each active fire and/or flooding onboard your ship.
1st fire/flooding - Main battery reload time: -10%
2nd and each consecutive fire/flooding (up to 6) - Main battery reload time: -5%
Fires and flooding can be extremely frustrating, especially, when you don't have a Damage Control Party up. This skill will partially compensate for the inconvenience by providing the ship a significant bonus to the main battery reload. Additionally, it can be combined with the updated Super-Heavy AP Shells to reduce both fire and flooding damage.

Dazzle (Destroyers - Line 4)
Added a new bonus to the activated effect: Reduces the accuracy of hostile fire directed at your ship and increases her speed for 15 s after your ship's been detected.

Ship speed: +8%

AA Defense and ASW Expert (Battleships - Line 2, Cruisers - Line 4)
Changed the following effects:
Battleships:
Continuous AA damage +10% → +15%
Damage from AA shell explosions +10% → +15%
Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -15% → -40%

Cruisers:
Continuous AA damage +20% → +25%
Damage from AA shell explosions +20% → +25%
Activated effect: Improves your ship's characteristics when her AA guns are active.

Ship consumables preparation and reload time -20% → -50%

With the release of Update 12.10, all players will have a 100% discount on the commander skill reset. All the details will be announced later.

Please note that all information in the development blog is preliminary. Announced adjustments and features may change multiple times during testing. The final information will be published on our game's website.

 

 

Oh dear Lord..... not this sittu againu........let's frakk up cruisers edition numero n......

 

WarGambling truly hates cruisers, no joke.....

55 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Some of them would make the game potentially faster paced,

Yeah... they are focused on increasing the lethality like no tomorrow...... but ofc selectively favouring babbies....

Edited October 2, 2023 by Andrewbassg