October #7 digest - Last Post

World of Warship

Latest Update (10.10) kicked in today. First off, like a well-known US streamer pointed out, today the cost of the infamous Puerto Rico B is obscenely ridiculous. Over four hundred Australian dollars! Absolutely not worth the asking price but you know some tool is going to spend that amount of money for it. And the same goes for all the others Black editions being foisted upon us. Unless you absolutely need it, keep walking.

They also have a Black Squadron event to further incentivize suckers whereby you obtain both original and Black versions. You receive various rewards - doubloons, coal, etc. Catch is you only get the rewards if you purchase a Black ship while the event is live. If you already own pairs, you just get what's in the progress bar listed above. 

More intrigued by the Poland! White and Red! common mission. Got the opportunity to run three of my Polish destroyers, the tech tree Tier VII Grom, the premium Tier VII Blyzakwica (an old warhorse favourite), and premium Tier VIII Orkan. Don't have the Blyzakwica '44. 

Played mostly Co-Op with this trio to grab the three rewards - the 60,000 Elite Commander XP on offer - because yesterday I had spent all my Elite Commander XP upskilling my Salem captain to 21 points (he started out as 17 point). Anyway, towards the end I jumped into Asymmetrics after the slow Co-Op grind was taking forever. Less competition from other players is the simple. More lively and challenging in Asymmetric anyway (less likelihood of falling asleep or being distracted by the dogs). Especially lively when facing a mostly enemy destroyer force with our friendly force of just three destroyers, one sub, and one carrier. Had fun all the same but it does require concentration. And normally most Asymmetric matches anyway go down to the wire. Same can't be said for Co-Op games. Snooze fest most times. Or it's over before you've even begun. 

Completed the usual Liberty Harbour mission goal of earning four collection tokens for exchange for 180,000 credits total. Of course, if opting to play Naval Command missions (PvP) as well that total jumps up to at least 270,000 credits. For one day's work, that's fair compensation. And the missions really aren't that hard.

For example, the carrier missions require obtaining a certain quota of rocket/bomb missions. For me, I just jump on the British Tier VI premium carrier Ark Royal, play a couple or three missions in Co-Op, and the task is done. 

Today I played Ark Royal (rockets & bombs mission), Grom, Blyzkawica, Orkan (all three for the Polish common mission requirement), Defence (bad choice for a certain Liberty Harbour task), Libertad (for the seconday hits ribbons mission). Played both Co-Op and Asymmetrics battle modes.

Yet to try the new missile scenario - Temporal Rift - that made its debut today. Received the three ships - a destroyer, a cruiser, and a battleship. Forgot this was a thing until after I'd finished my usual and daily grind. 

Not sure how I feel about playing it to be honest despite my reservations. As a gimmick, as with the Star Trek event, it should be fun. If this is going to a permanent feature (odds are this will be the case), they need to make it a distinctly separate battle mode like Asymmetric. And limit it to certain classes of ships (superships and above), then okay.

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Another new Battle of Trafalgar event. Rewards however are miserly - a few signals and one premium day. 

Spent dubs to progress through three phases in order to obtain Shinonome B in the Event Pass. Bonus was scoring some red economic bonuses from the Black Friday Squadron progress bar. 

Played Shimakaze (yeah, finally jumped on this ship), Ark Royal (rockets/bombs missions), Utrecht, Kalmar. Mostly Asymmetric but also Co-Op. 

Struggled a little with Shima in Asymmetric learning how to play her but persevered. Have to remember to save the third set of torps. Gone with the 12 km torps. Took this vessel out because of its torpedo offloads, but also to familiarise myself with this controversial ship. His proper skipper is grinding via Kitakaze. Yes, I could have taken Benham or Jager but the skipper being upskilled is Japanese. 

Performance was the same with Utrecht at the beginning but that was more me playing too aggressively. Once I adjusted however performance and outcome improved to the point where I now feel comfortable playing her no matter the situation in Asymmetrics. Its skipper is also my next candidate for 21 point upskilling (just upskilled today to 20 point from 19 point).

Kalmar was played to complete the Battle of Trafalgar final task. 

Completed the penultimate Dockyard mission.

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Last day of this ship-lean month. Played just two ships - Utrecht and Libertad. The former was the focus for today's grind; the latter just played to finish a Liberty Harbour mission. Considering spending dubs to buy some Event Pass phases to grab the sixty thousand Elite Commander XP so I can then fast track upskilling my first Dutch 21 point commander (not Helfrich) because I'm over playing Utrecht. Has its moment but requires a fair amount of concentration. And after a long day of concentrating, it gets tedious. And sometimes frustrating getting blasted by focus fire once too many times. 

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Starting a new game this weekend. Introduced to Into the Dead through Jingles playthrough. Was unsure at first but the series by Jingles got me hooked. So will start this weekend and probably go with the new pair introduced, Hao and Mei. I believe they recommend going with Penny and Daphne to start out with. Apparently Penny is the best scavenger (according the Jingles). And from the playthroughs I've viewed thus far, Penny is great. But Hao and Mei have just been introduced and therefore relatively new to the game (one hopes). Will post a first game runthrough soon. 

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