Example of combat not affecting pilot skills

[erstad]

OK, here's an example of how bad the skill advancement has become. The screenings in these three posts will show a ~30 plane Zero unit on sweep that over a two day turn got 42 kills. Not one of the pilots increased either air skill or defense skill. Most of these pilots started relatively experienced, so one wouldn't expect big bumps but there should have been some increases - after all, where do 70-80 experience pilots come from?

Plus, there's one guy who started with air skill of 35 and defense of 31, got a kill, and is still a 35/31. His general experience went up maybe 6 points, but none of the skills

Here's the before shot of the unit

[erstad]

Here's the after with the kill total

[erstad]

And here's the pilots. Some general experience increase, but no skill increases! Note also Kawabati, third from bottom - he got a kill but still has air 35/defense 31

[Historiker]

The twowith the XP in the 30th don't have a single mission. They can't get experience if they don't fly!

[loricas]

and two mission is not a hard work....if nothing change after alot it a significative exemple..but two..

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: erstad

OK, here's an example of how bad the skill advancement has become. The screenings in these three posts will show a ~30 plane Zero unit on sweep that over a two day turn got 42 kills. Not one of the pilots increased either air skill or defense skill. Most of these pilots started relatively experienced, so one wouldn't expect big bumps but there should have been some increases - after all, where do 70-80 experience pilots come from?

Plus, there's one guy who started with air skill of 35 and defense of 31, got a kill, and is still a 35/31. His general experience went up maybe 6 points, but none of the skills

Here's the before shot of the unit

Experience gains slow down above 60, 70 , 80, and 90 at proportional rates.

[erstad]

Understand that the pace will be dependent on the skill with least experienced pilots moving faster, but not one of the pilots improved air skill or defense skill! Including the guy who started in the 30's - seems like being in several successful combats and getting his first kill would help.

General experience did bump up on some of these guys, but not a single skill increase. Not saying they all should have seen a boost, but not one? How did the guys who start at, say, 75 or 80 get to that level?

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

The twowith the XP in the 30th don't have a single mission. They can't get experience if they don't fly!

No arguments there, the guy in the 30's I was talking about was Kawabata. He's survived 14 combat missions, has a kill under his belt, and still has an air skill of 35 and a defense of 31.

[CV Zuikaku]

Elf, we do not understant at all what are the rules for the new experience gains after the latest patch. Everything seems not improved, but messed up. first at all, the individual exp gains are too little. In combat (especially successfull ones) they shoul'd be growing fast up to maybe 60's. then they should be growing a bit slower. also, they should be dependant on situation in combat. If pilot Nakamura evades 2 Warhawks attacking him, then he MUST get some defensive EXP gains. What is general exp used for is also unclear (except for assigning to training command). And there are growing amount of rumors that training system and pulling pilots from reserve pool is seriously broken. There are unlogical losses of Exp (which nullifies training efforts). Some people have noticed that ,for eg. fighters reserves can not be pulled to all fighters squadrons of the same nationality. And I have noted that I can not pull trainee pilots to fill up training groups. Can you tell us what is true, what are rumors, and what will be done about that? [:(]

[PaxMondo]

bump.

[Marty A]

This squadron bomb bataan every day for 2 months. look at missions and experience and then tell me again working elf.

[FatR]

Do numbers in red mean that experience has decreased? If so, my situation is no less horrible - pilots lose experience faster than they gain it, even after slaughtering the enemy.

Morale calculations are also strange. The air units' morale rapidly drops if they do not encounter anyone in the air, but a unit can be absolutely slaughtered, losing 10 planes in two days without scoring any kills, and still keep 80+ morale.

[Nomad]

The numbers in red( orange ) are those that increased during the current month. the ones in green are ones that increased in the last turn.

[FatR]

   That's slightly better. Still, I checked and skills in those units that do not undergo specialized training do not increase at all. This is really bad for Japan players. You'll start getting noob pilots - probably even in December 1941 for some IJA units - and you'll have no way to bring them up to speed without pulling whole units out of combat. Also, you'll probably need to switch all of your aerial ASW assets to training until US submarines get good torpedoes, as opposed to, you know, leveling their skills by actually flying ASW missions.  

[KenchiSulla]

As allied player in guadalcanal campaign I noticed exp and skill increase on my ASW groups so it is not entirely screwed up.

[FatR]

   I've just meticulously checked every single air unit on both sides from my save of Guadalcanal campaign. Allied pilots get a few skill increases. There were 3-4 pilots with increased skills on the 4th of month, Allied units weren't on training, and most of them did not have any combat. On the other hand, Japanese pilots get Exp increases, but no skill increases whatsoever. The top ace of Shokaku's Zero daitai had Experience at 99 and Air skill at 79! (There were some turkey shoots, as I've managed to sink AI's carriers with my carrier pilots intact). The difference of 10-15 points between Exp and the highest skill was standard for the veteran squadrons. Is this a bug or something? 

[Cathartes]

Hang tight, some tweaks were made to pilot experience from training and combat.

Please watch this after patch 2 goes beta release.

[Rob Brennan UK]

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

Hang tight, some tweaks were made to pilot experience from training and combat.

Please watch this after patch 2 goes beta release.

It was utterly nerfed 1st patch to 'slow' down on map training units. however it completely stopped units getting skills in actual combat (except v v rarely). In my game vs the AI i had to put all units on a %train to get skills increse at all. Exp goes up just fine but without the requisite skills it seems pointless.

And as cathartes stated patch 2 will address this problem (we hope). what the end result will look like is ofc in the lap of the gods (Devs) [;)]

[KenchiSulla]

Looks like its going to get fixed, nice

[FatR]

    Great. Between near-infinite AI plane pool and this I was afraid that the game will break starting from 1943. Is the patch 2 supposed to be released any day now?