I didn't post here before since this has been discussed at length multiple times and the information is available. Test Server sections has some good discussions regarding this topic. I've been asked to do it now, so here is a brief explanation.
First I will state the obvious: NF=/=RL. While most people use this phrase every day, it is important to highlight the value of it.
I mostly see people quoting wikipedia, other naval information, WWI and WWII information or their own real life experience in their respective militiaries depending on the country every time there is a topic like this. With respect to all of them, those quotes are irrelevant 100% of the time.
Originally Posted by PictWarrior1
Originally Posted by reddofnoynac
maybe you have different sound sprites that everyone else doesnt have but when did the engines in NF make noise?
now you're just being silly.
You say this is silly, but it is actually as valid as quoting a RL experience which is the reason why he wrote it.
This is a game and reality has to suffer from time to time in order to increase playability and allow a pool of 7 nations with a great deal of ships in each one that need to be able to have the same level of importance. The code also prevents other Real Life situations to happen which helped "level up the playing field" on a real battle. We can't apply RL to NF and RL will never be a valid argument.
Now to the point, why CVs in this game have Sonar? This post is a great start to it.
Originally Posted by torion
The failure is that subs can be high level and still grow effectively, thus level, thus be playable and competitive, the things that are meant to kill subs cannot. As soon as they put out high level FF/DD/CL that can still be played not just for fun, but for competitive leveling growth, I say give everything sonar. WaW is one instance where there are absolutely no ships in a typical game even capable of carrying sonar, except CVs. Hence why 95% of WaW rooms are no torp.
As soon as SDE institutes high-level smaller ships, then I couldn't care less.
DDs and FFs and even CLs exist before the introduction of SS ships. They were not designed to counter them. They have been put in that role and were given some tools to do it, but they are not designed for ASW.
Subs grow more powerful and more resistant as they level up and can participate in high end game modes. Low level content such as DDs and FFs can't.
Here we see the first playability problem. How do we give vision in a situation where we don't have small ships? CVs. This is a game and from all the high level content available at the time when SS ships were introduced, this choice was the most reasonable one.
But that only the start of the arguments.
People may also say "we could use Escorts, so remove the sonar from CVs". Let me remind you that Escorts are: Dumb, Weak, Can't avoid shells or torps, and are Based on the same low level content that wasn't designed as an ASW. As an answer to the above question, they are not very helpful. The only ship that can be used by a player in this scenario is a CV which will serve as an escort for high level BBs.
People may also say "If CVs have vision, then give BBs vision too". Again, we have a playability problem. If every ship in the game is able to spot an SS... how do they attack. SS Ships have low range and reasonably low speed. If every ship can see them, they become useless.
People also say "let's remove the need for sonar, hey, let's just remove the need for fog of war altoghether so we can all see all ships at all times". Same as above but even worse. Ships need the cover in order to succeed in their roles. It is the reason why SS ships submerge or why IJN/KM has a great AA platform. Some ships need to cover themselves from sight in order to reduce they weaknesses and maximize their potential.
And this is just the start of it...
FF/DD/CL/CV/SS with sonar are all part of a complex system which is meant to counter the existance of an invisible ship in the battlefield. This was implemented in ships that were not meant to counter the new invisible content in the first place, so none of them are perfect in that regard.
If you change just one element (Remove sonar from CVs) without looking at the bigger picture, you end up with a crippled detection system. Best example of this crippled system is WaW because even though you have CVs and SSs which are part of the detection system, you are missing a lot of other key elements. People chose the easy way to fix that crippled system... no torp room. This "fix" is bad for submarines.
Was Sonars in CVs the best alternative to begin with? Probably not.
Can we just remove Sonar in CVs without looking at the other ships and the overall balance? Definitely not.
Real Life has nothing to do here. This is about having an invisible ship in the game and the need to counter it effectively in every game mode we have, while also allowing him to do his job effectively. This is about playability.
If you are interested in removing Sonars from CVs, I invite you to the test server section and discuss the Sonar Environment and give an idea that serves playability. We have ben working on an SS/ASW project which has this Sonar Environment as a topic and have been gathering most of the ideas already presented thoughout the forum, but new ideas are always good to have.
