Source
r/WorldOfWarships•
_Issoupe

Is it me or are most recently released premiums much weaker than before?

Discussion

When I look at the premiums released this year and compare them to the years before I realised that only a very small fraction fo them can actually be considered "good" while the majority goes from quite mediocre to completely garbage.

For real, we're very far from the gamebreaking powerhouses that were Alaska, Georgia, Musashi, Smaland, Enterprise etc...

In fact the only premiums that strikes me as "overperforming" are Chkalov and maybe Kearsarge.

Most of them are mediocre (Rochester, Constellation, Carnot, Congress, Gibraltar, Borodino)

A good chunk of them are complete trash (Tiger 59, Flandre, Marco polo, Hizen, Brandenburg)

And only a few of them are decent (Plymouth, Tulsa,.....)

Even at lower tier we have the same situation, with the most recent examples being Novorossyik who was nerfed to the ground before release or Bearn who may very well become the new worst tier VI CV when she'll be available tomorrow.

Did WG take a different approach regarding the balancing of premium/special ships or am I missing something?

Posted Dec 2, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

1435
Willruggz7•

WG has not publicly said anything regarding how they balance premiums, but I suspect they are trying to make premiums not as powerful as they have been in the past.

44
CoastSeaMountainLake•

After the captain rework, I think the new meta for premiums is: "It might not be OP anymore, but it can still take any captain you want". It's a killer feature. Grinding captains takes way longer than grinding ships, and captains have become ever more important for customizing your ship and play style.

Combined with the daily 50% win bonus, the feature of "any captain you want" is draw enough for even mediocre premiums to sell. It means you can grab the captain from your favourite tech tree ship, put it on the premium ship, get another 50% bonus of commander XP, then put him back.

14
_IssoupeOP•

That's a perfectly reasonable balancing strategy, but didn't they undertune them a bit too much?

I mean, even from a business perspective this doesn't seem like a great idea, just look at the number of battles played by most of the ships I listed.

10
Alpha433•

It's easier to buff an underprerforming ship then to nerf a broken one. You nerf a strong one and the community looses their shit, even if in the same breath they are raging at how strong a ship is. See gc for example.

9
Rotschwinge•

There are some rare ships in christmas crates and an Alaska at black friday... that's not a coincidence. Makes perfectly sense from a business and gacha pov

8
ipodtouchgen4This flair looks good•

Apart from some rare cases, most of these newer prems are quite diverse in playstyle so I wouldn't complain about their release. WG should rebalance premiums more frequently tho - the likes of Saipan or Fenyang are way overdue for buffs.

20
Lunaphase•

Theres a ton of premiums that are older that really need a re-look. The teir 4 and 5's especially need another re-do like Texas and yahagi and the teir 4 japanese premium "AA cruiser" that since the AA rework does fuck-all.

4
xXMc_NinjaXx•

I think the strategy has changed from “let’s make an interesting and well equipped ship” to “stronger ship, easy to play, easy to win with” to now “throw as many ships out as we can, they’ll buy it.”

15
Knodsil•

Which I am honestly ok with since every overtuned premium that they release hurts the overall health of the game. If they can release premiums that are slightly weaker then their techtree counterparts and offer a fun gimmick then I am all for it.

16
-Dead_Gamer-•

Like the japanesse Ise

2
snoboreddotcom•

id say its less even throw out as many but throw out with random gimmicks to try and get a sale.

2
SovereignGFCFEED ME CITS•

Blizzard/Heroes of the Storm ended up on "Release weaker, then slowly buff if needed" than "Release stronger, then nerf."

Armchair psych: It "feels" better to be "given" stats vs. having them "taken away" (even if there's a very valid reason for the taking away).

7
_IssoupeOP•

Well they have yet to buff any of the underwhelming premiums released this year. (aside from maybe a couple exceptions)

3
jervis38•

It's excellent - the days of the 'naughty list' really need to be behind us. Release balanced or even a little under-tuned, buff carefully as needed. As you said, the older ships were game breaking and now only available to people who were around to get them at the time.

7
Archers4Wins•

Angry Hizen main noises

6
Esteban_18_•

x2, this guy here calling hizen trash when at worst is a balanced ship, for me that is 10 times better than having a thunderer or smolensk in the game.

6
Gbraker7000Weeb Content Best Content•

Thing is, releasing a broken premium every time is just not worth it in the long run, people came to expect the next broken premium instead of looking at what's being released. Which i think is way better for the game and your own wallet, look at the Rochester, tons of people like the smoke cruiser gameplay, but the USN didnt have any, now we do, it doesn't have to be the pinnacle of damage and carry every game she is in, it just has to appeal to certain people.

Im still holding out for some fun IJN cruiser concepts, would love a shorter range 152mm mogami with smoke, a premium akizuki with a diff set of consumables and the list goes on, ships that i dont think would be down right bad for the game, but a fun concept to sail around on.

5
_IssoupeOP•

I'm not saying they should always release overpowered ships. Of course it's not healthy for the game to do so.

But at least they shouldn't just make half of them complete garbage.

3
kyuss80NA: Baruk_Khazad•

Hey Marco Polo just got a .1 sigma buff! :)

I don't care what anyone says, I love that ship.

2
rasmusdf•

Some of the, just moved into the tech-trees - Petropavlovsk for instance.

3
_IssoupeOP•

I'm talking about premiums.

Tech tree ship performances have always been quite steady over the years.

1
rasmusdf•

Yeah. I formulated badly. Instead of OP premiums, there have been some OP tech tree ships.

Anyway - some of the special ships are still pretty strong. Marceu, Ragnar comes to mind. Ohio.

2
_IssoupeOP•

The thing is, before we had OP premiums AND OP tech trees.

Ohio and Marceau were released 2 years ago.

2
rasmusdf•

2 years - wow. Yeah, you are right, it has been a while.

2
exiledguamila•

i believe all ships should tech tree or premium should be similar balance wise. Maybe let premiums have interesting features or gimmics you dont get in a tech tree ship but buying a premium ship to seal club shouldnt be a thing

2
DdayWarrior•

The problem is that there are so many ports full of OP ships, which people without them (new players) cannot get. So it is real fun to see a Giulio Cesare in a tier V game, or better yet a div of GCs.

2
guyinsunglassesCruiser•

I mean, premiums being sidegrades or unique but not overpowered experiences is a good thing I think. WG could very well release powerful ships, milk everyone’s wallets, and then remove the ship from sale. And that would be really bad for the game.

Edit: as I say that we did just go through Black Friday where they basically did just that with the JB, Alaska, and Massachusetts, but those ships already exist in game, and while they’re good they’re not like Thunderer levels of good

2
wazdalos•

I mean they did release a lot of mediocre ships, but then there is also Mainz (best T8 cruiser or at least among them), Chkalov (same as Mainz but more dependent on a skilled CV player to outshine Kaga or Enterprise), Kaersarge (its hard to rate it because just the gimmick is pretty broken and Id say dependent on the player it can be among the best). These 3 are top-tier ships. And then there also a lot of good ones like Tulsa.

2
_IssoupeOP•

Mainz was released almost 2 years ago.

And chkalov and kearsarge are quite litteraly the two ships I mentionned as exceptions.

1
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1
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[deleted]

1
Gordo_51Imperial Japanese Navy•

It's honestly refreshing kinda like tech tree side grades, you really enjoy Baltimore, and you want to make credits while playing it? Rochester is there for you. Like brawling BBs and need a good t8? Brandenburg.

1
MultiBouillonaire•

Kearsarge is gonna take one in the shorts, once the sales die down.

As a CV Main, I'm interested in Kearsarge, but knowing WG, I don't feel like spending the coal, then a couple months later watching the ship get shit on, because CVs bad, um-kay.

-2†
cromancer321•

Kearsarge is decent. But it has North Carolina shells which are very slow so you need to get used to it. If you don't like US battleships you won't like this one

2
Admiral_HeinzpartzI'm running into an island•

NC shells mean you can lob AP from island cover, and island cover is a nice thing to have your hull near when you are off flying airplanes.

11
AndyTheSane•

Plus it seems extremely hard to citadel.

3