User:Jigaraphale/Sandbox/3

Kancolle enhancement project

The following list is what I think are good ideas to implement in KC in order to improve the game, while keeping its basic aesthetic, and keeping in mind that it is still a free-to-play game that needs to make money. I absolutely do not want to transform this game into a generic and forgettable Gacha, I just want to imagine how an up-to-date Kancolle can be, with many features that I believe are missing in this 11+ years old game. I also consider that no 3rd party software should be used because if the game is "good enough" or even "perfect", it simply does not need such things (even so I will still use them myself).

Remove the stupid idea to have the Striking Force fleet in the 3rd fleet, the single worst design element in the entire game.

Some features that I believe must be added as soon as possible in order to make the game more welcoming and forgiving for newcomers, more bearable for long-term free players, and richer for any old player.

• Increase the dock size to around 150 ships for all players.
  • For now, free players are supposed to:
    • Clear hundreds of composition and sortie quests each requiring different ships,
    • Have high-level META ships,
    • Perfectly lock ships on each event when the average lock per event is increasing,
    • =>This is madness and way beyond reasonable.
  • Maybe giving those 50 new slots in several mid to late-game hard quests, unlocked with HQ.
  • Maybe also give 5-10 slots with a hard quest for each KC anniversary, depending on the recently added ships.

• All ships required in quests must be obtainable at any moment, so you are not blocked at some point, praying for the next event (Gotland, Fletcher, Johnston, Samuel B. Roberts, Gambier Bay, Shinshuu Maru, Hatsuzuki, Richelieu, USN SS, ...).
  • Making them "normal" drop is the best way to fix it,
  • Another way to fix it, is to modify those quests, so they can accept the unavailable ship, as well as some other alternative.
• All equipments required in quests must be obtainable at any moment, so you cannot be blocked forever if you lose unique quest equipments (see Unobtaiable equipments).
  • Every piece of equipment must be obtainable (via craft/Akashi/quest/stock equipment) "at some point", no matter the price, so you can eventually complete the kancodex,
  • Newer equipments may eventually become obtainable for all, but only several months/years after introduction, so to maintain the edge for more advanced players,
  • "Special/greater/rarer" equipments should be "limited" (not including events/ranking) and harder to obtain, to avoid power creep, as it is already done for some, and still giving a good reason to rank and play in harder modes.
    • It is better to have an equipment behind a "Nonaka price" rather than not obtainable at all for no reason.

• Rework all the shop economy! Some items are too expensive (resources, consumables, …), too cheap (dock extensions, rings, …), and/or useless.

• Equipment preset deployment must be fixed!
  • It can be improved by separating saves by ship types (BB with BB, CV with CV, DD with DD…) just like the ship selection tab.
  • Setups using RE or already equipped equipment not being usable on any ship is a complete nonsense, and should just work as for fleet presets, here only equipping the relevant and available equipment, with just a message warning about that.
  • This would make much more sense than the useless mess currently there, finally adding a real solution for equipment presets.

• A more explanatory crafting system (something that is not some witchcraft recipes like now),
  • Maybe just give some guidelines/probabilities on which class of equipment/ships you are going to craft within a range of resources used,
  • Make LSC great again! For now, it is just a Maruyuu machine… with no real purpose for ship building in late-game.

• A "quest tree", or at least some way to know what we have done and the immediate new quests we can unlock for every quest.
• More info about quest rewards, so we can manage our quests to clear.

• New maps : All Extra Operations.
  • We are waiting for the 2nd and 3rd EOs of the main worlds since they were introduced.
  • At this point, such EO can serve to re-introduce some rare mechanics, such as AGDP for W3, special nodes, historical fleets…
    • Ships like Souya could also gain some utility by having some exclusive routing (aka ice breaker in the W3 Arctic advantageous routing),
  • Since months are already charged enough with current EOs and quests, those new EOs may not be reseted each month and/or require the previous one to be unlocked (unlike 1-6).
  • Having only 2 EOs per world instead of 3 could also be a solution.
  • Some EOs could be changed/updated every quarter/year :
    • Maybe using older events maps and gimmicks.
      • It would be interesting to replace the original event rewards with something like ranking points or even a special currency that could buy some old event-limited equipments.
    • Using randomly generated map (forcing you to explore a bit every month) => maybe just 1 or 2, not to overwhelm us.

• New expeditions :
  • Extra Expeditions (with letters)
  • World 7 & 6 expeditions.
    • W6 expeditions could be limited-time, appearing only once, or just once a year, and where you can use exotic fleets to have special loot.
    • Some expeditions could also be randomly generated, adding more variations.

• Extend "One equipment mechanics" :
  • Some equipments receive exclusive mechanics within their category for no apparent reason, this should be extended for consistency.
  • Make the AA rocket barrage available to all AA rocket launchers:
    • E.g. The Rosa K2 stays the same, the regular Rosa has a worse trigger rate & stops fewer planes, and the British rockets have in-between properties.
  • Give all Yellow recons Red T avoidance properties, maybe with an avoidance effectiveness proportional to their LoS, and maybe with a chance to also avoid Head-ons for the better recons.
    • This mechanic could be extended to Radas & SPR, with some of the better ones having similar properties, tho less advantageous.
  • The Catalina rescue function should come to more planes, like all flying boats, and relevant seaplanes like the OS2U,
  • The high-altitude rocket interception, given to all high-altitude intercepters and not just rocket ones,

Some quality of life improvement for Sorties.

• Possibility at any time to see the fleet state (engagement, air situation, HPs...), so you can maybe close your eyes for more than 0.5 s without the fear to miss something.
  • Doing it like Kcanotify does (with overlays) is a good starting point.
• Clearer routing, where you can guess a given map routing by yourself with less ambiguity, and without the need to do several hundred runs, reporting it in some Excel sheets.
  • In-port log of the fleets used on the map could help,
    • Just knowing the girls' types and fleet LoS could be enough,
    • This could be replaced with an expedition-type overlay, where when selecting the map, the shadows of minimum/allowed/used fleets are displayed.

• Less useless loading times.

• More stats about one fleet :
  • The total stats (the real ones, since the current one is incomplete).
  • The general fleet LoS.
  • The fleet air power.
  • The Combined Fleets' stats.
  • The LBAS air enhancements.
• Separate AA from Fighter Power, and make LBAS interception stats more logical & consistent.

• Some equipments mechanics need to be reworked :
  • The Rice items are useless for now.
  • The majority of secondary guns are completely useless.
  • Most main guns (of any caliber) have no use for their lack of bonus or proper mechanics.
  • Almost all lower-tier AA guns have no purpose but to be scraped.
  • Several equipments have no purpose in the game, they are not used in sorties, not scrapped for quests, or consumed with Akashi, they need some reworks.
  • There is both an overabundance of equipments and a lack of setup diversity, saying much about the current state of the META.

• Remove the stupid idea to have the Striking Force fleet in the 3rd fleet, this adds NOTHING to the game but frustration and big mistakes.
  • For now, it is objectively and factually terrible game design and proof of lazy/spaghetti coding.
  • Making all fleets (aka n°1) "expedition capable" can be a way to fix this flaw, but having the SF in the main fleet is unequivocally better.
  • Historical elements are very much welcomed, unless they are detrimental to the game.

• Rework "tagging" !
  • In its some implementations, it was possible to lock himself totally, making the event impossible to clear in ANY difficulty.
  • If locks are not supposed to be an issue in lower difficulties, then a way to bypass "tag routing" must be easily possible in those cases. seems fixed since mid 2022)
  • Locks should not be applied immediately upon sortie, in order to let us cancel any mistake sortie before it is too late.
    • The Summer 2022 E-5 implementation was almost perfect in this regard, and should be the only way around.

• Historical bonus general nerf.
  • It must be a simple bonus fact, not a game-breaking thing that is a "must-have" each time.
  • European/summer bonuses are even crazier and must be simplified.

• Remove the possibility to drop nothing on an S rank on absolutely every "boss".
  • So far, sub-bosses are treated as regular nodes, not event counting for quests.

• Friendly fleets "from the start", but using them add a drawback, like less/worst drops for instance.
  • The current way FF works is mostly fine, but having some from the start could be nice for some players with limited time available.

We desperately need a new tutorial. The main goal of such a tuto is not to have a fully detailed explanation of how the game is coded and works like a wiki guide, but just to give everybody the Big Picture on what is possible in this game.

• We need explanations for more mechanics from the beginning, like :
  • Cut-ins,
  • Opening and closing attacks,
  • Fleet compositions,
  • Day and night battle mechanics,
  • Different nodes guide (combat, night, storm, resources, air-raid, air-battle, ambush, refueling, repairing, routing, blue, boss, TP, Sub, ASS, attol, installation …),
  • Routing explanations, from LoS to ship restriction, how it works, and how to find it by ourselves,
  • Airplanes effects, echelons, attack types, synergies, cut-in, slots size, AA resist …
  • Synergies bonus :
    • ASW,
    • Anti-installations,
    • Setups,
  • Fit bonuses,
  • Upgrades effects,
  • LBAS,
  • Consumable items (Rations
    
    , Damage control
    , Underway Replenishment, cakes, Akashi repairs, AS baskets, …),
  • Special equipments (FCF
    
    , SCAMP, NOAP
    , AGDP, RLK2, Speed modifiers
    
    , Ship Repair Facility, …).

• Possibility to replay parts of the tuto.

• Event general tuto :
  • Difficulties, notably limitations,
  • Difficulty switch and resets,
  • Locks,
  • Historical bonuses,
  • Historical attacks and routings (like 2021 spring Drum fleets),
  • Combined fleets,
  • Striking Force,
  • High altitude interception.

• A special guide for each special mechanic (touch & ci) could appear only after we unlocked it.
  • For instance, on every Big Seven's Gallery profile, you can find her touch tuto and effects.

• Explanation of the global effect of more stats like :
  • Soft and hard cap effects,
  • LoS,
  • Range,
  • Interception,
  • LBAS bombing.

• More tuto maps mechanics (using regular maps like EOs to display some mechanics):
  • Special unique gears use (artic gear, Akashi sortie repair, refueling, FCF...),
  • Special mechanics like TP phases or any LBAS-related mechanic currently missing.

• Ranking Tuto:
  • There is absolutely no way a new player rank by himself without any input on what ranking is, the fact that it's a thing, and basically what to do and for what rewards.
  • Some guidelines on the goals of ranking, how it works (reset & ci), and how to get points, are needed !

• Use the Katori-class as the "tuto mascots".
  • Reward Gotland as the final tuto reward, a nice Easter egg, and fixing her obtainability issue at the same time.

The Akashi upgrade system is antiquated and convoluted, it needs some polish.

• Increase the screws per day gain from about 3 to more than 5 in the end-game.
  • Maybe add one map (like some hard new EOs) that can give 1 screw/run (eventually caped like 1-6), or use some old/new "long" expeditions.

• General screw price balancing :
  • Some equipments are way too expensive for what they are, and others are very cheap.
    • SK Radar and Type 1 Land-based Attack Aircraft Model 22A are among the stupidest.
  • The range of cost is stupidly random, with for a given upgrade price, the guaranteed price range from +50 % to +100 % for no reason.
  • The fact that you can guaranty a 100% rate, is also a stupid element that has no reason to exist but to trap new players in wasting resources.
    • Some standardization would be appreciable.

• New Akashi menu UI :
  • Must not be hidden like it is now.
  • Give more descriptions on the upgrading effects/benefits (like visible stars' bonus).
  • Add some sort of timetable so we can find who to use without looking at all our ships one by one.
    • This could be on each ship's Gallery page.

• Rework the expeditions rewards & length (some are way too useless).
  • It could be interesting to add special rewards to the "very long" expeditions (18+ h) like rarer consumables (screws, cakes, AS baskets, emergency repairs…), eventually making those expeditions more expensive to run to balance them.

• Morale should come back to 50 when girls rest.
  • Maybe add a "relaxing mechanic" (like a dormitory, spa, onsen, restaurant…) where you can dock a limited amount of ships to raise their morale above 50 (maybe up to 100), maybe consuming some resources at the same time. A tier system could be used, where for every +10 moral point gained, a girl needs exponentially more time/resources to get it.
  • Maybe add a new bonus for married girls: the morale recovers faster and caps higher.
  • Morale above 50 could also go back down after some time (maybe losing 1 morale per day), encouraging smarter moral management rather than simple 1-1 farming.

Some UI improvements could be nice to see :

• For sparkling (making it more visible),
• More accurate percentage for quests (like with 10 % increments),
• To sort ships and equipments by stats, by types, by capacities (e.g. DLC capable), ...
• Dark mode (for my poor eyes),
• Notifications for expeditions, repair, craft, morale, …
• Expeditions arrival don't need to have the port reloaded to be obtained,
• EO reset don't need to reload the game,
• New CGs/seasonal CGs indicator (so you don't miss any),
• Global fleet stat for the expedition menu,
• Better sound and music management,
• In-game dev logs with the possibility to see past patch notes, so we can have a genuine way to see new stuff added for each update, with maybe some announcements on the side using a new kind of board, clearly separating the KC Twitter account from the default changelog/announcement board.

New equipement classification. Many different types of equipments share a same icon, where it would be more logical and convenient to add some distinctions :

• Separating "high angle guns" depending on if they are DD main, CL main, secondary, or large secondary,
• Separating CL & CA guns,
• Separating turret / submarine / midget-sub torpedoes,
  • Reclassing the 53cm Hull-mount (Oxygen) Torpedoes as sub torp,
• Separating dive bombers and fighter bombers, and make USN fighter bombers real ones,
• Combining jets (no need for 2 unique icons),
• Making the night fighter & night attacker icons more distinguishable, and add the the night bomber icon,
• Separating seaplane recons and bombers,
• Separating "AA rocket lauchers" from "AA guns",
• Separating depth-charges racks / depth-charges projectors / ASW mortars,
• Separating DLC / landing Tanks / Armed boats, and making the family/type behaviors more logical & standard,
  • Reclassing the M4A1 DD as an Amphibious Tank and not a landing DLC,

• Redestributing LBAS planes, for bombers, escort-fighter, interceptors, high-altitude interceptors, LBAS recons, ASW bombers, Jets.
  • Putting the Rocket interceptors
    
    as a proper category,
  • Combining land-based bombers/assault/Hayabusa bomber.

Adding a "dual-purpose" nuance could also help for :

• High-angle guns,
• AA / Surface radar,
• Fighter bombers,
• Bomber / ASW plane,
• Small/large/very large equipments (main guns, secondaries, searchlights, radars, sonars, recons, armors…).

Not really needed, but highly appreciable.

• Maybe give some ways to obtain new rings.
  • For instance, rewarding one ring for st-Valentine, after a very hard limited-quest.
• Any player-to-player interactions, where players can interact and maybe even play with or against each other.
  • Having the possibility to display our port to other players, to share data, or just to flex.
• Live CG.
• A proper icon for "longest range".

• Ranking hints :
  • Some hints at every month start on what will the ranking rewards be (ex: "this month: a plane from the tea country" and a spitfire is among the related rewards), so we can plan our ranking.
• New game engine that runs faster.
• Mobile update (with IOS maybe).
• Desktop app, where you have all game assets already downloaded, reducing the loading times and server load when peoples DL new assets at every new restart.

• And also, maybe, eventually, a global release/translation, not a new game release for foreigners, just the possibility to genuinely play this same and unique game from aboard.

Things I absolutely do not ever want to see.

• Gacha lottery,
• Auto quest selector,
• Skin economy,
• Premium currency (for exclusive stuff),
• "Fast mode" to skip content (maybe a skipped animation using a special currency can be good),
• "Autoplay",
• Limited currency to limit how much you can play per day,
• Auto repair system,
• Auto formation mode,
• Auto-click to continue,
• Auto-leveling mechanic,
• Any power creep equipment :
  • Specific unit/commander equipment,
  • Overspecific prototypes (like missile planes),
  • Invented/fake equipment (KMX planes, land-based planes on CVs, foreigners labeled as Jap…).
• Post WW2 content (to some extent).

Many "fake elements" are in the game, ranging from inaccurate behaviors, to fully made-up names, facts, or equipments. For a game that tries to be grounded in history, those are facts that need to be fixed.

• Fake remodels and equipment are fine as long as they are "reasonable, aka based on real prototypes, plans, use cases, ... the "what if",
• Fake equipment descriptions are terrible, and propagate false myths, a real shame,
• Fake ship classes make no sense and should be fixed,
• Many equipments have names that do not correspond to the displayed equipment (mostly planes), useless inconsistencies that can easily be fixed,
• Some fake equipability could be improved:
  • No need for yellow sec on all carriers and most auxiliaries, green sec are enough,
  • Type D DE should be able to equip boilers
  • Adding diesel engines could be a nice idea to fix DE & SS boiler equipability,
  • Seaplane equipability should be extended, as more ships were able to carry all types IRL,
  • Submarine able to equip turret torpedoes is no longer needed.

Some Bugs and inconsistencies that should have been fixed years ago.

• Stats :
  • Fix "broken stats" (FP, LoS, Armor on LB planes, and ASW and Bombing on fighters notably),
  • Fix expeditions and especially support expeditions, not counting stats properly,
  • Fix any instances where a stat is not counted in formulas where it should be,
  • Fix fit bonuses !!! (infamously the fighter power),
  • Harmonization of fit bonus effects, with older ships and equipment,
  • No more hidden fit bonuses, making them visible,
  • More "logical" fits (by classes/nations) and logical effects (like AA bonus on CVs),
  • No more OP fit bonus (a greater gear diversity is better than some META defining ones),
  • No more broken stats,
  • More logical "red fit malus", most are not needed at all and can be replaced with some equipment stat tweaks and regular bonus.
  • Ribbons: they are not working as they should, they are lacking a confirmation message to be applied, they cannot be modified without being lost, ...

• 7-5 installation node not being a proper one,
• W6 air nodes behaving differently to all other nodes in the game,

• LBAS "F5" bug :
  • This issue needs to be addressed, by being fixed and by providing a real solution to keep chevrons,
  • Making the Catalina rescue mechanic more logical by rescuing crews could help a bit.

• PVP swaps : PVP fleets swapping at the last second when going to fight them
• New ship CGs are NOT immediately unlocked in the kancodex when introduced, and sometimes are just never unlocked even if you have the said ship,
• Better management for special ships slots, like the Ise K2 class ones, where selecting the 3rd to 5th slots forbid you to put guns, even so, the 2 firsts ones are free,
  • This bug was fixed, but reverted back!
• "Longest Range" not having its proper icon,
• Interception stat not having any icon,
• Crit damages display: they make no sense for now, and provide too much fake data,
• Quests messed up: quests order needs to be fixed, by maybe finally recoding quests and using a proper ID system,
• Equipment preset deployment does not work with currently equipped equipment or on non-RE ships, it should behave like fleet presets,

• And all dozens of visual bugs...
  • Some stats/names for equipment or ships are not displayed when too long.
  • Black HP,
  • LV not increasing when exact exp acquired,
  • UI elements superposition,
  • Aircraft in combat,
  • Fuel/ammo resupplying,
  • Some old CG being low resolution in the Galery,
  • ...

KC is not an RNG-only game and I don't think that RNG is an issue right now in this game, but I think that some things can be improved:

• Drops :
  • The drop system does not need anything more, but maybe the idea of a "mercy drop", in order to make doing 435 runs for one particular ship less likely.
  • An idea would be to add a "drop pool", where you have all the droppable ships on a given map in it, and so when you drop a certain ship from this pool, her drop rate will decrease, making it less likely to have to make a billion runs for any given ship (but still possible). Also, when all the ships of the pool have been dropped at least once, the pool rates reset.

• Routing :
  • Since phase 2, there is almost no "non-sense" off-routing, so on almost any map, it's possible to have 1 route or multiple almost identical routes 100% of the time.
  • I think it could be nice to have some maps where at some points you have random chances to follow different paths with different encounters, obliging you to choose fleets suited for any of those situations.

Conclusion

In the end, what I want here is a game with a bit more polish, which is beginner-friendly and still has an interesting late game. I want to see more of the "announced" and/or "exclusive" content to be properly implemented in the game, making it looks more like an up-to-date game, and not just an old fossil with some paint.

The dev also must stop their stupid taboos about fixing stuff :

• It is not bad to nerf past equipment or ships,
• It is not bad to go back and remove broken elements,
• It is not bad to apologize.

Basically, I reject anything that is the signature of Gacha games, which would just transform KC into another generic and forgettable game.

I also want to avoid content exclusive to old players, not hardcore players, just old players that did nothing to really earn them (see here), which creates an unfair and undeserved segregation/street creed between recent and older players.

• If you want to flex, use exclusive furniture and medals, add stars on the rarer/better/most expensive equipment, or maybe just have duplicates of limited equipment.

For a final note, the best thing that could happen to Kancolle is having the developers listen to the community, because for years, most of the best FTP games have already seen an active debate between their devs and fans, bringing a constant benefic feedback loop to enhance the game. Better than "me" to improve this game is all of us AND the devs.