Lesta is goin' PaytoWin

[SolitudeFreak]

3 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

If you act like you are invincible rather than understanding risk, Detonation is there to remind you of David and Goliath.

If you are in a ship based around damage saturation sucks to be you I guess.

4 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

maintain a high angle that masks your magazines and take evasive action.

See above. I'm not sure how you mask your magazine in a DD apart from simply being passive enough to not be seen.

[Frostbow]

3 hours ago, Kruzenstern said:

They will not be freely available for direct sale.

Which means they can put them into lots of containers that can be classified as 'event rewards' yet are for sale all the time, like they did with blue boosters. And them not being 'freely' available for 'direct' sale means they CAN occasionally be available for direct sale as well, just like blue red boosters sometimes are (albeit at such ridiculous prices that I never was tempted). I am certain from past experience that WG will milk this cow using shady shenanigans.

While all of this is currently contained within Lesta's plans for their version of World of Warships, I've seen enough changes made by Wargaming on various occasions that I will not be surprised if they will also implement this (outside of Lesta), and then steer away—through the usual gaming industry practices such as obfuscation and the use of multiple currencies, among others—from the 'they will not be freely available for direct sale' marketing ploy. 

The guiding principle here, whether we are talking about Lesta or Wargaming or any developer/publisher, is profits over players. After all has been said and done, they are business entities designed to generate profit first; studios to make games, second.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

27 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

But, the "blue" and "red" or "rare" and "elite" categories of products aren't available for direct purchase.

Nope.

They are available by direct purchase of containers.

28 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

 

 

I don't think I've ever heard of an HE shell that didn't penetrate the armor rating of the magazine causing a det.  In my experience, it's always been heavy pen hits like AP, Torpedoes, Bombs, or very high caliber HE against paper thin armor units like a Smolensk (and I've never personally seen an HE shot do it).

 

And I mean it is skill affected as to how often you have detonation mechanics apply to you.  If you sail broadside to an enemy BB at close range, you will almost certainly be detonated much more than if you maintain a high angle that masks your magazines and take evasive action.  If you act like you are invincible rather than understanding risk, Detonation is there to remind you of David and Goliath.

 

 

 

 

I've detonated destroyers with HE bombs.

[Verblonde]

22 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

So, I'm still curious to know why some people consider it to be a big deal or a "sky is falling" event?

I think we have a couple of distinct elements here, and one is potentially more consequential than the other.

I'll be a little sorry to see detonations go - *if* they go - simply because they provide a bit of a historical nod (as alluded to earlier). That said, I can't argue against the logic of those who suggest it's a daft mechanic, certainly in games that matter (basically, PvP, and especially competitive modes). I'd file this proposed change under 'meh'.

The thing with the boosters that would have a tangible impact on battle performance - and again, *if* it were introduced - is rather more consequential, at least in potentia. Based on WG's previous form, the chances of the better boosters not being available in crates that you pay money for are so small as to require new words to be invented to describe the magnitude of the smallness. In that case you get an unavoidable line between 'spend more money' and 'do better in battle' - for many folk *that* matters. A lot.

As I said earlier, I'm waiting until we get the announcements for our servers before I get too excitable...

[Frostbow]

2 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

It introduces an element into taking damage that cannot be reliably mitigated in normal gameplay or predicted.

It can be totally mitigated with the use of a signal flag that can be purchased or earned free in so many ways.

2 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

This encourages players to be cautious in taking large amounts of damage with impunity and incentivizes weighing the possible consequences of such actions against the gains, further introducing more complex decision making that would not be present if all factors could be reliably predicted in the combat system.

The Juliet Charlie flag easily solves that with guaranteed reliability. 

2 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

In short, it rewards players who play smarter and penalizes players who play dumber.

It rewards players who use the Juliet Charlie flag by reducing the chance of detonation to zero.

[Jakob Knight]

24 minutes ago, SolitudeFreak said:

If you are in a ship based around damage saturation sucks to be you I guess.

See above. I'm not sure how you mask your magazine in a DD apart from simply being passive enough to not be seen.

 

If you take a hit strong enough to pen your magazines and not go out the other side after already taking enough damage to enable a det, it probably won't matter if you detonate.

 

Mind you, all I have said is from my own experiences and what I understand of the det mechanic.  If I am wrong, then I'm wrong.  This is all my own opinion, of course.

 

 

[Jakob Knight]

6 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

 

I've detonated destroyers with HE bombs.

 

I stand corrected then, though HE bombs have the advantage of hitting through the deck armor, so it might fall under the 'high caliber-paper thin' category...maybe.

 

 

[Wowzery]

I haven't seen a signal flag since they introduced the the four economic bonuses.  Do they even still exist? 

I can put on two decoration flags, but any signal flag for say, speed boost, I don't even see anymore.

[ArIskandir]

14 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

Based on WG's previous form, the chances of the better boosters not being available in crates that you pay money for are so small as to require new words to be invented to describe the magnitude of the smallness.

🤣ROFL... nice one.

As an observation, it is a very different thing to offer economic boosters for money which is a common thing to do on F2P games and more or less considered 'kosher', to offering performance enhancers for money. The "blue boosters in crates" does not need to be considered a straight out precedent for the offering of "rare/elite signals in crates" as they are very different things from a gaming perspective. Apples be apples, oranges be oranges.

Otoh, performance enhancers are already sold for money and these are the same guys that concocted the Premium ammo in WoT so I'm not putting my hands over fire for them. 

Edited June 18 by ArIskandir

[ArIskandir]

6 minutes ago, Wowzery said:

I can put on two decoration flags, but any signal flag for say, speed boost, I don't even see anymore.

They were moved to the 'Equipment' screen, the same you use to mount Upgrades and Modules

[SolitudeFreak]

Just now, Jakob Knight said:

If you take a hit strong enough to pen your magazines and not go out the other side after already taking enough damage to enable a det, it probably won't matter if you detonate.

Uh, no. If my Fletcher still has 14k health remaining and I'm hit almost anywhere by an HE round, even a small caliber one, I get to roll for detonation, even if I would otherwise still have plenty of health to disengage or even possibly fight another DD.

In some cases, the only 'mistake' the player makes is not mounting the flag. There is no real skill to how it works in the vast majority of interactions because outside of training rooms on stationary targets, players rarely target magazines intentionally. And with DDs in particular, the target size relative to the magazine combined with how erratically it moves makes a detonation nothing short of a lucky shot.

Attributing any of that to skill is questionable at best, especially considering there is a mechanic which you can pay currency for that literally renders all that 'skill' irrelevant.

My opinion is that detonation is there as an RNG surprise mechanic that encourages a bit of resource tax for people who are annoyed by it. The only skill that negates it is playing well or often enough to afford the flags that prevent them.

[Frostbow]

6 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

They will not be freely available for direct sale.

That is debatable, knowing the many ways and methods gaming companies have at their disposal to generate a sale without making it appear they already did.

6 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

They will not be freely available for direct sale.

Intentions versus capabilities. Lesta makes known their intention, but the capability to make these items available for direct sale in other ways, at the time of their choosing, in whatever shape or form they deem fit, still remain. 

5 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

And I've watched him play on-stream. Not impressed.

In fairness to Sea_Lord_Mountbatten, his stats are way better than yours or mine. 

[Frostbow]

4 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

I have craved the chance to play against Unicum players. 

Among the popular unicum players I've played against was Potato_Quality. I fought against him in Tier VIII Ranked Battle and sunk his Massachusetts. 

4 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

That's how you learn and get better.

100% agree with this. I was totally clueless about unicum or super unicum labels that highly competent players have until I read somewhere on the old NA forum about O7 and their roster. Then I met a division of O7 players in Random Battle and that was my first time to see them how they actually play. At that time I was just playing for pew pew pew, and what I saw that day was a free clinic on how to play.

All the experiences playing against purple players helped me understand the game, and I am still learning to this day.

[ArIskandir]

44 minutes ago, Frostbow said:

In fairness to Sea_Lord_Mountbatten, his stats are way better than yours or mine. 

Without access to your stats I can't say for sure but I doubt your recent stats are all too different from SLM. I've seen you play and I think you are probably selling yourself short. 

 

Edited June 18 by ArIskandir

[IfYouSeeKhaos]

4 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

 

As per the phrasing on the articule, only the more signals and supercontainers have a chance to drop rare and elite signals... Those 2 are not straight for sale afaik. There's no way I know to consistently get your hands on more of those other than playing more, which is the apparent objectives of that rework, not more P2W per se but 'play more'. 

 

Well...it does require more play...but there is a way to get them other than playing your main account...

You can buy them for community tokens...so rather than pay2win it has become:

RecruitAltAccounts2win...

I guess there is a bit of actual recruiting that goes on but for the most part that is probably the majority of "recruiting" going on.

[Andrewbassg]

4 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

To be honest, ever since the day I started playing, I have craved the chance to play against Unicum players.  That's how you learn and get better. 

Yes, absolutely. I've met quite a few of 'em,streamers,  also various WG staff. Crysantos, Happa, SLM, Fem, El2AzEr ( helming a sub , no less) Maltese Knight and others.

Particularly memorable and also educational was when divved up with a NOCAP div.

Playing with good players is indeed, quite an experience.

 

 

[Unlooky]

2 hours ago, Andrewbassg said:

 And who knows about it. Still little things like that sets ( or used to ) apart Wows from other arcade shooters. It ads depth and increases and widens the  appeal.

An RNG instant death mechanic that can be completely ignored by paying extra is neither interesting nor deep. It adds absolutely nothing besides "laugh at this guy who is too poor to spend 100k extra every game." It's far from WoWs' most egregious display of poor game balance, but it's certainly something you can point to. I'd argue it's P2W by all definitions of that term. 

 

1 hour ago, Jakob Knight said:

There is skill involved when you know the mechanics.  To be detonated, you have to have already taken some damage, the hit has to be large enough to penetrate (so no small hits like secondaries or DD gun hits), and that hit has to be on a magazine.  Thus, a skilled commander will limit the visibility of their magazine spaces, control where torpedoes hit their ship as possible, and evaluate the condition of the engagement to limit the conditions that cause detonations.  Unskilled commanders will keep their magazines exposed, disregard the condition of their ship, and not be mindful of risking detonations.  It's RNG that the players can control to some extent when it will be applied based on their chosen actions.

 There is no skill involved whatsoever with detonations. Yes there are a set of mechanics on how they work, but when the counterplay is "don't get hit in the magazine" that adds absolutely nothing beyond giving people another reason to hide their ships from taking damage. 

Additionally, why would I sacrifice my ships positioning or playmaking potential to "mitigate detonations" when:

1) They're extremely rare to begin with, and should not be a factor in anyone's calculations.

2) I can simply hoist a flag to completely ignore them.

This is the crux of the issue with detonations. All arguments in support of them are completely meaningless when WG has provided us a way to ignore them entirely. You cannot argue that this is a "good" mechanic that improves the game when we literally have a way to play without them ever affecting us. 

2 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

 

And yes, you can use the flag to temporarily alter standard gameplay to remove detonations.  But you can't do it forever...sooner or later, you will have to default back to relying on your skill as a player to avoid detonations.

Someone who spends money on premium ships and time to gain more silver can afford to run detonation flags 24/7. I probably could, but I don't feel like hampering my earnings by 100k every match, so I do not. 

[Andrewbassg]

1 minute ago, Unlooky said:

An RNG instant death mechanic that can be completely ignored by paying extra is neither interesting nor deep. I

For a gamerplayer, maybe. But for a naval themed enthusiast is a serious nod to RL. But alas Wedgie is tone deaf to such things....

Btw.....

7 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

In addition, the detonation mechanics have been removed from the game

.....people PREDICTED  (and for years!!) that Wedgie would rather remove detonation, instead of making Cv;s susceptible of it.

 

 

Aand here we go...

[Unlooky]

1 minute ago, Andrewbassg said:

For a gamerplayer, maybe. But for a naval themed enthusiast is a serious nod to RL. But alas Wedgie is tone deaf to such things....

Keeping detonations for the historical accuracy is laughable. This game is literally World of Tanks on water. Historical accuracy in the gameplay was never intended. If WG wants to have them solely for the thematic experience, detonations should be reworked to a special animation/chance upon your ship's destruction.

 

3 minutes ago, Andrewbassg said:

.....people PREDICTED  (and for years!!) that Wedgie would rather remove detonation, instead of making Cv;s susceptible of it.

I 100% agree with that. Detonations are garbage and unnecessary.   

[Ensign Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Frostbow said:

In fairness to Sea_Lord_Mountbatten, his stats are way better than yours or mine. 

The one time I gave his stream the time of day, he ran into two basic traps in two near-consecutive battles and got fragged in short order. He must have been having an unusually bad day if his stats are actually good, because what I saw of it didn't impress.

[oldblackdog]

Okay, so far most of the discussion has been about the change in combat signals. Lots of interesting viewpoints and food for thought.

 

Now, what about the changes to containers? Good? Bad? For the record, I almost always choose coal containers, so I doubt this will have much effect for me.

[Unlooky]

1 hour ago, Frostbow said:

In fairness to Sea_Lord_Mountbatten, his stats are way better than yours or mine. 

I would hesitate to call SLM anything more than an average player, especially when it comes to high tier play.  

Regardless of personal vs CC stats, he has a lot of uncommon opinions that aren't really backed by anyone else in the WoWs community. This should be the metric to determine whether someone is talking out of their rear IMO, not differences between their stats and yours. 

Personally, I find his content to be absolute slop, either a rehash of common circlejerked opinions in the community, or some absolutely baffling opinion video in which he either underrates or overrates some random ship. 

[Andrewbassg]

9 minutes ago, Unlooky said:

Keeping detonations for the historical accuracy is laughable. This game is literally World of Tanks on water. Historical accuracy in the gameplay was never intended. If WG wants to have them solely for the thematic experience, detonations should be reworked to a special animation/chance upon your ship's destruction.

 

No. It is not about game play but about appeal. Attention to detail, which induces respect, like this.

,albeit for and on a different direction/level.These things no one gonna see playing the game, Yet they are there.

 

Anyway, we gonna have to agree to disagree,  maybe its a "for me but not for you" kinda thing.

Except ..

20 minutes ago, Unlooky said:

detonations should be reworked to a special animation/chance upon your ship's destruction.

...this was also asked for many many times, but Wedgie being Wedgie....

[ArIskandir]

39 minutes ago, Unlooky said:

a rehash of common circlejerked opinions in the community

My opinion in a nutshell

[Wolfswetpaws]

3 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Nope.

They are available by direct purchase of containers.

I've detonated destroyers with HE bombs.

 🙂