WoWS Q&A – 8th June 2016

Thanks to Carnotzet (BTW leak will still come today, have patience)
Disclaimer: Please be advised that the following information comes from the Russian-speaking community and, thus, certain events and specific details may not apply to other servers.
1. Regarding Nagato, did you change anything (accuracy, dispersion)? It seems that after the patch, I have a harder time hitting enemies, and people seem to notice a decrease in accuracy on Kongo. Could you dispel our doubts ?
A. Now that some times has passed since the release of the patch, we can look at statistics. Here they are.
Kongo: average accuracy decrease by 0.5 and average damage decreased by 251.
Nagato. average accuracy hasn’t changed and average damage increased by 483.
This represents normal fluctuation for such time frame. Considering we haven’t planned any changes for these ships and haven’t done any either, our statistics show that everything is in order.
2.a. Why can’t we turn minimap circles for main battery and torpedoes off? Why can’t we hide the values on the minimap circles?
A. These questions were examined during public testing. We will continue collecting feedback and will plan on improving the interface accordingly.
2.b. Can we expect our smokescreen borders to be visible in 5.7.?
A. Unfortunately, it won’t come in 0.5.7. However, we are working on fixing this issue in one of the following updates.
3. Did you change citadel penetration mechanics lately?

A. We haven’t changed anything regarding citadel penetration in 0.5.6.
4.a. Why did you launch team battles without having any rewards associated with this mode? Is it not clear enough that, without rewards, an amazing mode won’t get the popularity it deserves?
A. We don’t believe in the concept that “without rewards, an amazing mode won’t get the popularity it deserves”. Rewards can encourage people to play a mode which they weren’t interested in. The season of team battles that underwent showed us that the mode needs some improvements and changes. If we would have added amazing rewards from the get-go, some feedback may have never been brought up and because of this the project would have been worse. Don’t forget that ranked battles hadn’t big rewards in the beginning and that now you can win doubloons and premium time.
4.b. Why aren’t there any tournaments being held?
A. We will soon announce a tournament for the best teams participating in team battles. We also plan to implement a tournament feature and considerably improve this aspect of the game. However, it’s included more in our long-term plans than our short-term ones.
4.c. Why cosmetic settings aren’t implemented into the game yet? Things like removing distance fog, choosing the sights color, changing AP HE shells colors, etc.
A. Certain mods, which have been approved for a long time and are suitable for the game, will be gradually implement in the client. However, implementing something in the client takes much more time than creating a mod for it. And it’s not really because of the complexity of the changes we need to make, we have to make sure it doesn’t impact in any way the performance of the game (on a great array of configurations). We also need to be sure that the feature in question is wanted by a large number of players. The responsibility level is not the same. So the question is not really whether the process is hard or not but rather how long it will take.
4.d. Why isn’t there an observer mode for tournaments?
A. We’re working on it.
5. In the 0.5.6. interface topic, many players asked if the total of damage inflicted could be moved before all the ribbons instead of after, but it was never done. Why ?
A. Not all changes can and need to be implemented between public testing and release. We constantly follow the public testing forums and, combined with other data (surveys, feedback, etc.), it helps us better understand players’ wishes. At the same time, we cannot answer and give a positive answer to each and every feedback we receive. However, it doesn’t mean that giving feedback and opinions is useless, on the contrary.
Regarding your issue with the interface, we’ve looked into it and decided to change it !
6. Could you add a free-for-all mode? This would be limited to each type of ships with a +/-1 tier difference. No teamkills so you could add Kitakami to this mode !
A. Technically speaking, we could nearly do anything, however, not everything is needed to the game. World of Warships is and will remain a game focused on teams (flots) fighting each other and, even if it’s rather minimal in random mode, it is about coordination between players, and all the mechanics are created with this in mind. We have no plan to change this.
7. Yamato seems to sit a bit high in the water? Am I mistaken?
A. It seems you are. Everything is fine regarding Yamato.
8. Emden was equipped with torpedo tubes in reality. Why isn’t it so in the game? Moreover, AP damage on that ships is lower than on Dresden. Why is that?
A. Most of the ships in the game had torpedo tubes in reality. However, they couldn’t rotate and thus we decided not to implement them for balancing and gameplay reasons.
Regarding the difference in AP damage, it was done for balancing reasons.
1. I know my question will make a lot of people facepalm but I wanted to have your opinion about it. Why have you decided not to add submarines to the game?
A. Submarines don’t have a long history of taking part in fleet battles, which our game focuses on. Moreover, taking into consideration all of the concessions we’d have to make, their gameplay would be rather weird. Nevertheless, our position on this matter is “we currently don’t plan to add submarines”. We haven’t dismissed this idea for good. After all, our work on the project is evolving from one year to another. Theoretically, everything is possible….someday.
2. Regarding Iwaki Alpha, do you plan to add it to the game without the suffix? On another topic, according to statistics, she seems a bit underpowered. Do you plan to improve her, maybe by improving her torpedo arcs of fire?
A. As with every other similar question, no comment. According to statistics, she’s doing just fine, but we’re taking into consideration that experienced players own her. On the other hand, we understand that some aspects could be improved to make her – and another Japanese ship, Yubari – more confortable to play. In patch 0.5.7., we plan to implement minor improvements to both of these ships in order to improve their gameplay.
[Please be advised the following answer contains a lot of mathematical data and, since I’m neither an English native speaker, nor a specialist in math, there may be (and surely is) a lot of terms wrongly used. If you want them corrected, don’t hesitate to contact me]
3. In what way is rounded the probability of a plane being shot down with each tick from an AA aura? Do large caliber guns have a better probability of shooting down planes?
A. The current model for determining the probability (for each tick – which happens every 2 s) is as follows:
1. It determines the current effectiveness of the aura;
2. It determines the average lifetime of a plane in said aura;
3. It determines the maximum number of ticks needed to destroy said plane (the last tick has a 100% to destroy the plane);
4. It determines the number of ticks remaining;
5. It then determines the probability.
1. The current effectiveness of an AA aura (Et) is calculated according to the following formula : Et = Eb * Ek * %
Eb = AA aura base effectiveness
Ek = sum of all modifiers needed to calculate the current AA aura value
% = percentage of effectiveness of said aura based on the number of AA armaments remaining or the number of planes present in the aura.
2. The average lifetime of a single plane in said aura is determined by taking the base parameter named “average lifetime” and dividing it by the current coefficient value under “Aura effectiveness”.
3. The maximum number of ticks needed to destroy a plane ™ is calculated by taking the time of destruction (by said aura) of the previously destroyed plane. This model allows us to define exactly the estimated total time needed to destroy a whole squadron in a particular aura and, thus, bring variety regarding the time needed for each plane to be destroyed. It means that if a plane is destroyed when t time = its average lifetime, then the maximum time for the next plane to be destroyed will remain the same, just like the previous plane. If a plan is destroyed sooner or later than its average lifetime, the time needed for the next plane to be destroyed will be adjusted by changing its maximum lifetime.
So, for the first plane in the squadron that is destroyed by said aura, the maximum number of ticks (Tm1) = the average lifetime of said plane at the current aura effectiveness. For the following planes, le maximum number of ticks ™ is calculated with the following formula Tm = Tp – Kp + Tm 1/2
Tp = value of Tm used for the previous plane;
Kp = tick number on which the previous plane was destroyed.
4. The number of ticks remaining (T) needed to destroy a plane is calculated as T = Tm – Tp (maximum number of ticks – number of ticks that have already passed).
5. The probability (%) for a plane to be destroyed by the current tick (V) is calculated as follow, V = 100 / T (100%\number of ticks remaining).
The probability to destroy a plane for each tick depends on:
-the number of tick that have already passed. The less there are, the higher the probability (the probability of the last tick cannot exceed 90% if, after the calculations for the last tick were made, the squadron still has planes. Successive ticks will then always have a probability of 90%).
-the current coefficient, which is the average lifetime of a plane.
Additional remarks:
In order to reduce occurrences of extreme (high or low) values regarding the lifetime of a plane after each tick, normal distribution is used instead of uniform distribution. The parameters are: distribution interval is set between the time since the last plane was destroyed (or 0 in the case of the first plane) to the time at which the current plane is guaranteed to be destroyed ((plane number in the squadron + 1)*average time needed for a plane to be destroyed in a particular aura), variance (value of sigma in the distribution half-bounded interval). Outside of interval boundaries, the values are distributed uniformly following normal distribution (to reduce occurrences of extreme values)
4. What achievements are needed for the Legend of the Seas medal?
A. You need to receive honorable/heroic individual achievements such as Kraken Unleashed, High Caliber, Dreadnought, First Blood, Just a Flesh Wound, etc.
5. Why haven’t you implemented shells ricocheting on the sea surface? Video showing the effect. Why such an oversight?
A. It isn’t an oversight but a game convention. The game doesn’t need to have all the phenomenons regarding real sea physics.
In this case, this mechanics would be very hard to control by players and would not add anything special to the gameplay.
6. JamesWhite said in a stream that free xp won’t be unified between WG games. Why is that? This contradicts what you promised.
A. In our plans for a unified economy, our first task is to introduce a common currency (gold).
I can’t say anything else or comment on what my colleague said. The latest information will be given in an official announcement (when it will be published).
7. Given battleships dispersion, and the importance of RNG, I feel like more and more cruisers sail broadside and pepper me with HE shells while my shells just splash water on their decks. I’m aware that you don’t want to turn this game into world of battleships, but I’d like to know if you have plans on reducing dispersion against ships that sail in the straight line for some time (for all ships, not only BB’s)? Or take some other measures?
As far as I understood, citadels are only modeled “externally”. None of their internal parts are modeled. As a result, it is understandable from a gameplay standpoint, but not from a logical standpoint. It’s hard to understand that a citadel gets hits by a shell that only leaves “an air draft” and does minimal damage because of overpenetration. Do you plan to change anything in this regard?
A. Despite the fact that you are slightly exaggerating (yes, sometimes all shells miss but BB’s love ships sailing broadside and they are ranked very high damage-wise), both parameters you raised (shell grouping and citadel penetration) can be completely changed in the future. We don’t think major changes regarding game mechanics are needed but we’re aware that they could need some tweaks and minor improvements. I can’t talk about anything concrete at the moment though.
A lot of news coming from the 0.5.7. PT bulletin thread.

• Certain changes (in particular minimap changes) planned for 0.5.7. won’t be implemented until 0.5.8. since they sped up the working cycle and updates are being released faster than previously. As a result, problems found in one patch will rarely be fixed in the following update (For example, when 0.5.6. was released, 0.5.7. was nearly done and they were starting to work on 0.5.8.).
• Cyclone weather was generally well received by players, that is why they decided to expand the number of maps it can occur on. They will also try other weather experiments in the future. This feature will not happen in Ranked battles.
• Regarding module upgrades rework, players won’t lose anything (nor modules, nor credits or doubloons). If a module is replaced, players who had it installed will get the new one for free. If it is removed, players will be refunded in credits. They don’t plan to remove and refund all equipped modules.
• Regarding low-tier IJN cruisers buffs, in 0.5.7., a new module will be available for IJN premium ships with 140mm guns (for now, it concerns Yubari, Katori and Iwaki) called Gun fire control mod 0. It will increase turret and torpedo tubes rotation speed by 20%, secondary guns range by 20%, and reduce maximum dispersion of main and secondary batteries by 40%.
• They are preparing PvE prototypes for internal testing (with fort bombardment, etc).
• Work on matchmaker 2.0 is completed and it has passed internal testing. If all goes according to plan, it should be released in the next update.
• In 0.5.7., radar and HAS work at full range, regardless of cyclone.

Edit 1. More news.

• No changes to Mikasa.
• First module slot will include (in addition to the special IJN module) AA/secondaries survivability, ammo magazine survivability, Main batteries / Torpedo armament survivability/protection. USN BB’s will also have a module for main/secondary batteries fire range and secondary guns accuracy in the second slot, and a module for main guns accuracy in the third slot (it will have a greater effect than now). No changes regarding the effect for the firing range.
• Main battery mod 2 increase in loading time is reduced from 10 to 5%.
• Changes are planned for the map “Islands of Ice” and for the map rotation.

Well here is the first official announcement. Sadly, no details.