Beat 1939 Hard Daytime, one boat, my thoughts on the game

[DasGuntLord01]

Hey folks, last night me and my mates won a 1939 hard mission after lots of grinding and practice.

Full stream vod here.

I considered this the "Final Boss" of wolfpack. 1941 games seem to have larger convoys, which makes the game slightly easier in my opinion (since it's much easier to accidentally hit far targets after missing your intended target).

We managed to sink over 70,000 tons before calling it a night.

So it feels like we've won Wolfpack for now, and I'll probably be taking a break from it, but I felt like offering my thoughts here.


I have to say that I do love this game. It really is the best game I didn't know I needed in my life. Me and my mates have had a tonne of fun playing and streaming it over the last few weeks. It really is an excellent product. Even though it currently lacks all the content we want, it is stable and fun, and a hopefully an excellent sign of what's to come.


It seems like escorts aren't very good at detecting you. Maybe this is one of those things that's supposed to get more difficult as the years increase, but if you're decks awash you can sneak in pretty close even in broad daylight. Maybe that's intentional, but I feel like the lookouts havn't had their coffee that day.

Speaking of decks awash, you can fire the deck gun with washed decks! I have no idea if this has been brought up before, so I'll mention it just in case, and provide some videos.
This might be OP, because the escorts seem to get... confused. Here is the clip where we first discovered this. And here is us testing it against a 1941 Hard convoy, and sinking many escorts in the process.
The TL;DW of it is that escorts have a very tough time hitting you unless they are right next to you, allowing you to sink them with deck guns (especially if you gang up on them). I don't know if this is realistic or not, but it did take some of the magic out of the experience.

The convoy, and the escorts, seem to give up on hunting you quite quickly. Or did we just get lucky? Obviously not getting spotted is ideal, but after relatively little practice it seemed pretty easy to escape the escorts if we were spotted. I dunno, maybe that's just us?


Once the escorts give up and the convoy stands down, they seem to always return to their original course and speed. Is this true? This predictability makes setting up the next attack easier than expected. I always imagined that convoys would choose a new course and speed after being attacked for precisely this reason. At any rate, it doesn't seem right, and is another thing that takes a little bit of the magic away from he experience.


Apart from that, the only changes I'd like made are the ones that, I'm sure, everyone has already suggested. But me, personally, I would prefer some QOL improvements first. Fix the lighting in the recognition manual when the night lights are on (I'M BLIND!), a way of bookmarking your targets in the manual, things like that.

After that I'd like to be able to ramp up the difficulty so that me and my crew-mates have to worry about even more variables at the same time. I have no idea what those variables should (or even can) be, though, so I will defer to the experts.

Lots of people have been asking for NPC crewmates. I don't know about other players here, but in my opinion this should be lower on the developers list of priorities. It's probably gonna take a lot of work (and, therefore, time) to make NPCs function to everyone's satisfaction. That time could be spent making the game better in other ways. More uboats, more threats, more missions.

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. Thanks, devs, for making such a great game!

[RedPwny]

Nice post. A couple of comments.

I've had destroyers keep up the hunt for quite a while in hard mode- like an hour. Not sure if you're expecting that? Obviously it will vary depending on how well the captain evades but maybe there are other RNG factors such as thermal layers and such?

Also, I have definitely seen a convoy appear to permanently change heading after detection of a sub.

My disposition is similar to yours. I haven't beaten the game on hard yet but medium is not a problem. I'd like to see a few QoL improvements such as improving the ladders, bookmarking in the recognition manual, readback of transmitted radio messages, etc.

Could not care less about NPC crew. Many disagree apparently but, to me, that is contrary to the core design of the game; it is about leadership and coordination of a team. Fine if the devs want to add it- I just don't consider it a priority.

Number one thing that is missing for me is progression. Whether that is a campaign, missions, ranks, achievements, statistics, etc., not sure, but that is the thing that would keep me engaged. What is my next goal?

[Aktungbby]

RedPwny!& DASGRUNTLORD01!

[DasGuntLord01]

Originally Posted by RedPwny

I've had destroyers keep up the hunt for quite a while in hard mode- like an hour. Not sure if you're expecting that? Obviously it will vary depending on how well the captain evades but maybe there are other RNG factors such as thermal layers and such?

Also, I have definitely seen a convoy appear to permanently change heading after detection of a sub.

that's good to know. I'll chalk these up to luck, or me not paying attention.