Official Patchnotes for Update 0.4.0 – WoWS

~ Sebastianul
World of Warships is getting an update – a big one! Read up on what we have improved and added into your favourite game.

The patch is scheduled for June 26 and will be applied on the servers from 05:00 until 08:00 CEST during which the game server will be offline.

With the deployment of the update, your game progress will be wiped as previously stated, meaning your ships and even stats on your profile will be taken away or reset to zero respectively. We are wiping it all, so once the Open Beta begins, everybody starts on an equal footing. But that doesn´t mean you will not be getting something in return, based on your participation in the Closed Beta testing.

Patchnotes:

Unified Premium Account

  • Update 0.4.0 brings the Unified Premium Account from World of Tanks and World of Warplanes into World of Warships, meaning you will be able to reap the benefits of having a Premium account shared across all of your games!

Consumables Management

  • The consumables menu is now located within the Modules tab in the Port, and will be arranged in a similar manner to Upgrades. Each ship will have four slots, which a player will be able to fill with consumables selected at their own discretion.
  • Every type of consumable will have an improved counterpart. These improved consumables will need to be purchased and resupplied after each battle, but they will reload faster, allowing players to enhance their battle performance.

Below is the complete list of consumables that may be mounted on a ship depending on the type and tier:

  • Damage Control Party: Accelerates repairs to damaged modules, firefighting efforts and recovery from flooding.
  • Repair Party: Partially restores the ship’s hit-points by repairing any light damage.
  • Defensive AA Fire: Increases the intensity of anti-aircraft fire and decreases the accuracy of attacks by enemy bombers and torpedo bombers.
  • Spotting Aircraft: Extends the firing range of the ship’s main battery guns.
  • Catapult Fighter: Follows the ship and automatically attacks enemy aircraft.
  • Smoke Generator: Generates a smoke screen behind the ship that reduces the chance of being detected by the enemy.
  • Engine Boost: Temporarily increases the ship’s maximum speed.
  • Hydroacoustic Search: Temporarily extends the torpedo acquisition range. Also increases the range of assured acquisition of enemy ships within the smoke screen area.

Reporting

  • New opportunities for interaction between players, namely compliments and reports, has been introduced for testing purposes.
  • The number of available reports and compliments will be limited. However, the list of such reports and compliments will be altered on a daily basis.

Crew Skills

The system of mastering Commander’s skills has been revised. Seven new skills have been introduced:

Level I skills:

  • Expert Loader: Accelerates shell-type switching if all main-battery guns are loaded.
  • Basic Firing Training: Improves the performance of the secondary battery armament.
  • Basics of Survivability: Accelerates repairs to modules, firefighting, and recovery from flooding.
  • Situation Awareness: Includes a special indicator, showing if the ship is detected by enemy ships or aircraft.
  • Expert Rear Gunner: Increases the efficiency of self-defense armaments for aircraft with rear gunners.

Level II skills:

  • Aiming Expert: Increases the aiming speed of main battery guns.
  • Torpedo Armament Expertise: Reduces the reload time of torpedo tubes and the servicing time of torpedo bombers.
  • Fire Prevention: Reduces the chance of fire on the ship.
  • Incoming Fire Alert: A warning is displayed about the risk of exposure to long-range artillery fire.

Level III skills:

  • High Alert: Reduces the reload time of the Damage Control Party consumable.
  • Vigilance: Extends the torpedo acquisition range.
  • Dogfighting Expert: Fighters with a cruise speed lower than the enemies enjoy a temporary increase in their attack power. The bigger the difference in speed, the greater the increase.
  • Superintendent: Increases the capacity of auxiliary consumables for special skills.

Level IV skills:

  • Demolition Expert: Increases the chance to set an enemy ship on fire.
  • Advanced Firing Training: Extends the firing range of the secondary battery armament.
  • Last Stand: Whenever the engine or steering gears receive critical damage, they continue to operate with a penalty.
  • Aircraft Servicing Expert: Increases aircraft servicing speed and survivability.

Level V skills:

  • Last Chance: Increases the reloading speed of all armaments when the ship has low Hit Points.
  • Preventive Maintenance: Reduces the chance of critical damage to ship modules.
  • Concealment Expert: Reduces the ship’s detectability.
  • Air Supremacy: Changes the number of aircraft in squadrons.
  • Jack of All Trades: Reduces the reload time of all active skills and consumables.
  • With the version 0.4.0, camouflages have been added. In addition to customizing the ship’s appearance, camouflage also reduces a ship’s detectability in battle.

Camouflage

  • With the version 0.4.0, camouflages have been added. In addition to customizing the ship’s appearance, camouflage also reduces a ship’s detectability in battle.

Balance

Global changes

  • Tier X USS Midway aircraft carrier has been added to the game.
  • Tier VIII premium Japanese cruiser Atago has been added to the game.
  • Tier VIII premium Japanese cruiser Kitakami has been removed.
  • The Japanese starter ship Katori has been deleted from the ship branch and replaced by the ship Hashidate.
  • Smokescreen effect time reduced to 65-97 seconds (down from 90-120), and will increase at higher levels. Smoke deployment time is 20 seconds for all destroyers (down from 40-55 seconds). Smoke deployment time for the cruisers is now 15 seconds, and lasts for 80 seconds.
  • The reload time for the basic ability “Damage Control Party”, for destroyers, has been increased to 60 seconds (up from 40).
  • The amount of basic smoke available on a ship and the use of the ability “Repair Work” have been decreased.
  • Main caliber upgrades were removed from the Japanese Battleship upgrades – these upgrades are now available with hull improvements.
  • High Explosive shell damage-calculation formula was changed – now the amount of explosives in the shell and the caliber plays a larger effect in damage calculations. Small caliber HE shells will now do less damage, cruiser HE will stay somewhat the same and Battleship HE should now do more damage.
  • Improved accuracy for all battleships when shooting at close range (approx. 5km).
  • Decreased critical chance for all modules on tier 1 ships Erie and Hashidate.
  • Anti-Aircraft power on North Carolina decreased.
  • Patrol radius for spotter planes and catapult fighters was slightly reduced.
  • Striking setup for Tier IX and X carriers has been changed to be more versatile, including fighter squadrons. Top multi-role setups for Tier IX and X Japanese carriers has been changed to fighters setups.
  • Torpedoe drop distance with the ALT key has been returned to previous (0.3.1.3) settings.

Individual ship changes

  • Atlanta: surveying cameras in combat have been refined.
  • New Mexico: an ability to launch an air reconnaissance spotter has been added to the hull of the last modification – fixed an error where the 2nd hull’s main-caliber gun reload time was 2 shots per minute, instead of 1,8 as on all other hulls.
  • Kuma: an ability to launch a catapult fighter has been added to the hull of the last modification.
  • Furutaka: an ability to launch a catapult fighter has been added to the hull of the last modification.
  • Zao: hull armour slightly increased, speed increased from 31 knots to 34 knots, increased main caliber reload time from 12.2 to 13.7.
  • Myogi: later period hull has been added. Myogi receives the later Japanese battleship design pagoda superstructure and good optics which provides an increased firing range. The firing range for the starter hull has been reduced. For the maximum-configuration hull, an ability to launch an air reconnaissance spotter has been added.
  • Kongo: an early hull for the battleship has been added – it will become the first configuration of the ship in the game.
  • Fuso: an early hull for the battleship has been added – it is now the first configuration of the ship in the game. The situation is the reverse of Myogi: there is no pagoda or optics in the early modification, so the firing range will be reduced. There is also no torpedo protection.
  • Nagato: an early hull has been added and it will become the first configuration of the ship.
  • Amagi: an early hull has been added and it will become the first configuration of the ship.
  • Yamato: ship’s detectability by planes has been lowered from 17 to 16 km.
  • Mogami: increased distance for detectability by firing by 350m; increased range of vision by 1km; increased detectability by other ships from 10,08km to 12,06km; increased detectability by planes from 7,5km to 8,5km.

Game Maps

Visual design of all maps is still in progress.

  • The Two Brothers map has been added for battles played by ships of Tiers VI to X for Standard Battle and Domination modes.
  • The Ocean map is now unavailable for ships of starting Tiers, to prevent novice players from getting battle on this map.
  • Respawn points have been revised on the Big Race map.
  • On the New Dawn map, the location of islands has been changed and the open sea areas in the map corners have been expanded.
  • On the North map, a passage through the large island in the right-hand part of the map has been added. The respawn points have also been revised.
  • Balance corrections have been made to the Islands of Ice map.
  • Map randomisation priorities have been reworked to take into account the new map.
  • On the Fault Line map, an airfield and town on the islands have been added.
  • On the New Dawn map, small shore-towns have been added.
  • Designations of areas in the Domination mode are now placed in alphabetical order, from west to east and north to south.
  • Settings for “god rays” from the sun have been changed on most maps to be less blinding.

Client Update

Automatic tuning of game client settings has been implemented in version 0.4.0. During the first launch of World of Warships, the game client will test the computer’s performance and determine the optimum graphics settings. In the course of determining the optimum settings, the system will take into account the CPU and GPU of the player’s computer.

Graphics

  • Visual effects for torpedo explosions, on impact with a ship or the ground, have been improved.
  • Torpedo wakes now include a more realistic foam trace.

Sound

  • Game interface sounds have been improved.
  • New gun sounds have been added and the existing sounds have been revised.
  • Ship movement sounds have been fully remade.
  • Aircraft movement sounds have been reworked and are now more realistic.
  • All sound effects have been mixed.
  • Audio performance has been improved.

Interface

A Notification centre has been introduced, which saves battle reports and reports of other activities from the current game session.

  • The alternative battle interface mode can be adjusted in such a way that a player can see detailed information about other ships by pressing the Alt button instead of holding it.
  • In the battle-loading screen, you can now compare the parameters of your ship against any other ship on the team lists by hovering over it.
  • Quick action buttons on the Contact List have received a new look.
  • By default, the focus is on the Start Battle button in the battle-loading screen.
  • When you enter the Commander screen, the From Reserve tab is selected by default.
  • The Enter button in the Division players search field now changes its appearance when the cursor is hovered over it.
  • A hint was added to the XP multiplier on the ship icons in the Port screen.
  • In the player’s profile on the official game website, multipliers for specials will be ignored, but Premium Account bonuses will be taken into account for all experience-related values.
  • We have also improved the calculation of data about experience and credits earned in battle. Now all earned XP, credits, and Free Experience will be rounded upwards.
  • Reticle appearance in the Binocular View has been reworked.

System Changes

  • An error has been corrected that resulted in a black screen between the map-loading screen and the battle screen.
  • Static light map artifacts have been corrected.
  • The game interface in Port has been optimized for low PCs. Now the Port screen loads faster (will be implemented after the Public Test).
  • The ship model displayed in the Port screen will no longer be reloaded when not required due to the player’s actions.
  • Improved battle performance, fixed micro freezes occurring with fast Left Mouse Button clicks.
  • Improved battle-loading time by optimizing disk read operations.
  • Fixed sound glitches in active battle.
  • Fixed performance degradation during long battle sessions.
  • Particle effects have been optimised for Medium and Low graphics presets.

Economic Changes

As we bring in the first stage of the Unified Premium Account, tech tree progression will be aligned with other WarGaming titles. You will notice increases to credit and XP costs, of both ships and their modules, as well as to upgrades – by a factor of between 2 and 3.5, on average. 

Some ships, especially in the lower tiers, have been totally rebalanced and have seen even bigger changes. XP income has also been rebalanced, but while lower tier ships now earn slightly less experience, high-tier ships will now gain more. Account leveling has also been adjusted to be in line with XP income, but on average it will take you the same amount of time to progress as before. 

On the other hand, level rewards have been significantly increased. Commander progress will now be slower as well, but the prices for recruiting skilled commanders has been adjusted – Senior Command Course is now significantly cheaper.

The above changes should alter the game’s economy into its final form. We do not foresee any more big changes in the future.