WoWS Q&A – 20th February 2016

Translated by Carnotzet. BTW I am going to see Deadpool today, will post some more stuff when I will return (a few hours).
Some information regarding secondary guns and the new perk associated with them.
Q. Won’t the tier 5 captain skill increasing secondary guns effectiveness by 15% be a little expensive for what it is? Why didn’t you put a linear increase in effectiveness – for instance 30% for T2-4, 45% for 5-7, and 60% for 8-10?
A. It goes without saying we will keep a close eye on how the changes to captain skills affect the game. We made them as such because we believe they’re optimally balanced.
 
Q. With the new secondary guns skill, if I lock onto a target on starboard, my secondary guns on the port side won’t fire? Or will we be able to lock on one target on each side?
By the way, why won’t lower tier BB’s fully benefit from the secondary guns skill? They need it the most since they have crappy secondary guns whereas high tier BB’s already have good secondary guns and, moreover, battles at those tiers happen at 15-20km.
A. Only one target can be locked onto. At lower tiers, this skill would be overpowered with a higher percentage.

Q: Didn’t Yubari need improvements?

A: No. This is a specific ship, but it is quite good. It was positioned as a cruiser with powerful AA guns for Tier IV, and it will remain the same. In 0.5.2, its major competitor, in terms of the number of destroyed aircraft per battle, was the famous Tier VI Cleveland cruiser.

Q: What about protection against unwanted mods?

A: In Version 0.5.3., we’ll continue our efforts to counter unwanted mods. We have implemented a new level of protection with yet another coming with Version 0.5.4. Using any prohibited mods will not only be disadvantageous, but will also be inconvenient.

Q: Any proposals for harsher penalties for teamkillers?

A: Yes, we have plans for that. It’s likely that we’ll release a separate article to share our ideas with you and get your feedback. Stay tuned!
Matchmaking explained.

0.5.3.x matchmaking
General matchmaking system
Terms:

  • Queue : queue of players waiting to get into battle
  • Battle group : players selected from the queue to fight in a battle
  • Team : players of a battle group selected to be on the same team
  • Ship weight : relative performance of a ship in a battle on the basis of which the matchmaking system divides the battle group into teams.
  • Matchmaking system : algorithm that selects players from the queue and puts them into a battle group, which is then divided into teams

Ship weight : at tier one, ship weight equals 1000 points, every further tier is increased by 1.315 times the value of the previous tier.
In practice, this means that a tier 10 ship has more or less the same weight as a tier 7 and a tier 8 ship put together. Ship classes on a given tier have the same weight. CV’s have a little more weight and premiums, a little less.

  • The matchmaking system tries to put the same number of players on each team (except when there isn’t a lot of players online).
  • The matchmaking system doesn’t put more than 4 CV’s in a single battle.
  • The matchmaking system tries to put the same number of each ship class on each team, but it isn’t always successful at doing so.
  • The matchmaking system tries to perfectly mirror CV’s, in particular in regards to their tier.
  • The matchmaking system tries to put players into battles with other players of the same tier as far as possible if the player had several battles in a row with large discrepancies between ship tiers.
  • The matchmaking system tries to put same ships on each team (Gearing + Shimakaze vs Gearing + Shimakaze, not 2xGearing vs 2xShimakaze)

The matchmaking system doesn’t take into account :

  • modules (hull upgrades, range finder, etc.)
  • upgrades
  • captain skills
  • the player’s rating (any of them)
  • the number of top tier ships in teams (first in line to be fixed)

Known issues:

  • Low number of players in the morning. If there is only a Nagato and a division of 3 Yamatos online, the battle will be 3vs1.
  • The matchmaking system creates a battle group without taking into account it will have to split it in two teams. Thus, sometimes, teams are not balanced properly.

Sandbox matchmaking system
This matchmaking systems works the same as the general matchmaking system.
Players can be drafted into the sandbox matchmaking system if they have tier 1,2 or 3 ships AND if their account level is lower than 6.
If a battle isn’t found after 150 seconds, the player is placed into the general matchmaking system.
The account level of a division is equivalent to the level of the player with the highest account level in the division.
Ranked matchmaking system
This matchmaking system works the same as the general matchmaking system, with some particularities:

  • the system matches players from a single league.
  • The waiting time to find a battle isn’t limited since no battle starts without 14 players.

Team battles matchmaking system
This matchmaking system only takes into account teams ELO rating.
The systems takes n teams with a lower rating than yours and n teams with a higher rating, removes from the pool the teams you fought against during the m last matches, and a uniform algorithm then picks an adversary from the remaining teams.
Currently, n = 10, m = 1
Players’ requests [New]
The following information come from players’ answers to a survey regarding matchmaking problems.
Players say that matchmaking problems start to appear at tier 6 and higher.
Matchmaking problems often mean players know the outcome of the battle before it even started.
According to players, all of the following problems with the matchmaking system become much more significant when playing in ranked battles.
The biggest problems of the matchmaking systems are as follow:
1.The difference between top tier ships in each team – the difference in top tier ship number between both teams and, even if both teams have the same number of top tier ships, the difference in top tier ship classes between each team.
2. The balance between tiers – the difference of +/-2 tier is critical for a lot of players, especially regarding

  • a) high tier matches
  • b) BB’s

3. The number of DD’s – there are too many DD’s in general and the difference in DD’s composition in each team gives one of them a clear advantage in capping points.
4. The balance of divisions. According to players, a team with more divisions has an advantage over the other. They also mentioned the balancing problem of divisions playing against teams with lower tier ships than them.
5. The balance between classes. Assuming that a battle is fought on a single tier, classes play an important role [on each tier, the balance between classes is different].
According to RU forums, the Russian Cruisers will come first, followed by new German ships and the first actual British branch. The German ships should appear in the near future, whatever that is in WG terminology.