The dev philosophy has shifted towards complexity and interaction, world of warships style movement, from a fun based arcade game on caps.
You don't see casual organic encounters anymore on big ships, it's just pre-agreed raids and events.
EDIT: The metrics speak for themselves, indie cap prefixes on tracker used to always be at the top, now look where they are - update after update lowers the enjoyment of playing caps casually.
The only thing that could be done is Haste being replaced as dev lead by someone with philosophy geared towards fun and casuals again, but that's not happening any time soon, and the game might be too old and unpopular to get someone who'd care enough to make the changes after he's gone - we are down to 3 admins, this might be the end of the line, and the people who played because of having casual fun on big ships have moved on anyways and might not even return even if you do shift cap design towards them (us) again.
Anyways I think people stopped playing caps because they are now quite complicated to master. GBs are the simplest and seem to be most popular for small scale battles.
Another problem is that the caps in spite of recent changes have become quite neutered against snubs.
Sure, it takes a long time for 2-3 snubs to grind down a cap, but barring a few lucky hits as a lone cap that's not a BC you are practically guaranteed to lose in the long run, even with a supposedly anti-snub loadout.
Last week I did a cruiser dual against a staff member that hadn't logged his Hel in so long he forgot he had it.
After the match, he was debating selling it.
Another 1v1 in Conn against a staff member and he compared it to two fat people riding the electric carts in Walmart jousting with forks.
What's the common nickname for the 'defenseve' slot turrets on cruisers ?
Ass blasters.
The fact that there is a 'defenseve' slot mortar codename drop is the really silly part, if your heavy guns go there then it's just a badly named slot at best.
Thanks, I have to open my translation software again
In the past when I've seen posts like this,
Maybe I'll wave my flag and say,
Maybe I'll be angry and scold,
Maybe I'll sneer and curse
Now I don't care, I just throw out the speech I posted before I left:
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️⛴️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️⛴️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
VS
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️⛴️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️⛴️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️
As you wish, our capital ship players have been advised to ROLL