WoWS NA Q&A

Answered by Quemapueblos on WoWS Reddit
Updates to Questions to some previous QueNA Questions:

  • US CV changes: Right now we are considering how we could buff US CVs in a future patch. Our current thoughts are to first buff the fighters so that they are more effective against their IJN counterparts, how exactly – we aren’t sure yet. Definitely not in terms of dealing damage. Not sure which patch this will be added to. Please note this is still very subject to change.
  • WOWS Soundtrack: Most of you have probably seen this already but it was asked about several times here about the soundtrack for our game. Well it’s finally available for free! Check out our Soundcloud page and portal article for more info

1.) Any plans to add HMCS Haida as a premium ship? Given her service record with Blyskawica and the already hinted at Z-32 along with the fact that she is a musuem ship would make a great premium addition. The Canadian fans would be quite happy. You could even make a “Naval Legends” episode on her!
2.) The Tier X British cruiser Minotaur has 3 inch secondary guns that fire at 90 rounds per minute, would this be a balancing problem?
3.) What is your favorite German battleship so far in WOWS?
4.) What premium ship would you personally want to see in WOWS?

  1. Not for this year but this one is starting to surpass the cries for Kitakami and Enterprise. It’s on our radar as a community request
  2. I can’t wait for the secondary builds πŸ˜‰
  3. I enjoyed the Konig quite a bit while testing. Bismarck was a close second but I’ll have to see if my opinion changes after I grind up the line. As for premiums, I like the Scharn more than the Tirpitz or Albert. The rate of fire was nice
  4. 4 WORDS (well, 3 and a letter) SOLID GOLD KAMIKAZE R


Q: Are we going to get another premium carrier in the game? (Possibly a Yorktown Class with a name that starts with an E?)
A: I don’t think we will be able to squeeze another Premium CV in before the end of this year but we should have some coming in 2017.
Q: With the Dunkerque’s release, what’s the timeline of a French Battleship tree looking like? Obviously RN CLs are next and rumors of German DDs have been circulating, but are there any vague thoughts as in like… 2017, or is it more of a 2018+ kind of timeframe? With that said, is it also a requirement that a Cruiser or Destroyer tree -must- come first for every nation? It seems to have been the case thus far.
A: Not 2016 for sure but we haven’t finalized all lines for 2017 yet so I don’t know either way yet.

1) Your thought on Torpedo Reload Booster consumable ? It seems to be forgotten since release because smoke is just too valuable. Why can’t Hatsu/Kagero choose between TRB and Speed boost instead, just like USN DD can do with DF consumable ? Locking it to final hull only would be fine. Hatsu and Kagero are also performing worse than their predecessor.
2)Is it possible to make some small changes to CV tech tree description while we wait for the large overhaul? It would be nice to know the flood/fire chance of torp/bomb (flood chance of ship torp should be added too). The term “Loadout” in fighter’s description is also quite confusing for new players and should be changed to “Maximum time fighting before running out of ammo” or something like that to make it easier to understand.
3) When can we expect an IJN premium carrier or just any IJN premium of t6-7 πŸ™

  1. As it stands, it’s not used very often and we want there to be interesting options for the consumables but as you mentioned, Smoke is too good to pass up for anything else. Speed Boost on the other hand would go the other way, it can’t compete with Torp Reload and would make those DDs too powerful. I’m not sure how we will fix this issue but it’s something we are looking into.
  2. Seems like a good idea to me
  3. Unfortunately we have any new IJN premiums coming in the next few patch at the moment.
  • could we get a more detailed review about ranked season 4 from WG’s side – like in season 2 for example – some numbers on how many reached rank x in how many battles on average. Also, how the feedback from the ranked survey was.
  • can we get AA defensive fire visuals? Would be great for both CVs to see it and also other CA captains to coordinate usage.
  • is WG happy with the high tier meta of high concealment, high firing range that partially leads to the defensive/sniping gameplay (also the next point)?
  • high tier repair cost reduction – and info about the data they gathered?
  • more different camos with differnet stats. I’d be willing to pay doubloons for a +cash camo for my Yorck (and maybe some other ships). Think of Armored Warfare’s battle hardened stuff to turn ships into semi-premiums. No retrain ability but increased income. Might as well work for high tier stuff and make it NOT lose money on good battles.
  • any news on unified WG gold?
  • new team battle season when?
  • are there plans for a personal mission system like in WoT? (~maybe~ please with less RNG related stuff)
  • CV balance (IJN/USN) from WG’s point of view? And what do you plan to change about it?
  • other CV changes planned?
  • ARP ships: why not a single Kongo/Myoko with several camos for the color schemes?
  • again ARP stuff: Could we get an “Enable ARP content” setting independant of the selected port? I like to play the ARP ships, but I am stuck to the same port since the 1st Kongo.
  • do you have figured out a way to integrate CV gameplay + CA gameplay? (Tone and similar vessels, even if its only scouting)
  • (now that brit CLs are announced): what will be their gameplay “flavor”? We have the russian CLs as firestarters with shortrange torps. In what way will the brit ships be different?
  • any changes to the report/compliment system? It could use some. Any use for Karma?
  • anything planned like marks of excellence in WoT?
  1. See above comment for more about what we are thinking for Season 5 but in general I think the post above lays out mostly our concerns about Ranked, Class balance is off due to incentives and MM, Selfish behavior encourage for the “loser star,” prefered tiers, etc
  2. Good idea
  3. Super defensive gameplay is not fun for
  4. No update on how the discounts yet but I’m interviewing a dev for an upcoming Talkin Ship and it’s a topic we will discuss
  5. It’s definately an area we are actively trying to figure out how far we want to go with this and what players would enjoy without hurting the economy
  6. This one I’ve been having difficulty getting anyone to discuss in concrete terms right now. It’s still a hot topic in flux
  7. Still working on fixes for Team Battles. New season of Ranked will come first
  8. We have some ideas on how we can do this differently for ships but there is some cool stuff coming soon!
  9. I mentioned some ideas we have in the OP
  10. We didn’t have the option to do the skins seperately when we initially started our ARP colllaboration and it keep possibility of adding different or unique gameplay in the future without affecting historical ships
  11. I’ve added that to the suggestion list as well a few patches ago but I’m not sure we are going to prioritize it in the short term
  12. Not yet, its our biggest concern for those hybrid ships
  13. We have some unique ideas for their gameplay but you’ll have to wait to get your hands on them πŸ˜‰
  14. It’s not a top priority right now but we agree it could use a little love
  15. Not at the moment but maybe one day

Q1. What changes does Wargaming plan to implement in Season 5 of ranked?
In season 4, there were many complaints about ranked such as:

  • Long grind to rank 1
  • The “Top scorer does not lose a star” having negative effects on teamwork, and also favoring DDs.
  • DD heavy meta, US DDs generally have been the best ships for ranked
  • Lack of cruisers due to high detection range and poor defenses
  • Stale high tier meta on 2 cap maps, not uncommon for teams to sit in their cap and wait for the other team to come to them
  • Complaints that T6-7 gameplay was inferior to T7-8

Q2. With the imminent introduction of the British Light Cruiser line, how does British Heavy Cruisers like the Country-Class cruiser fit into WG’s plan?
Q3. What are some of your favorite nicknames for the ships in game?

1 . As of a few days ago, we have gathered all the feedback from each region and are defining what season 5 will look like. I’ve thrown in some suggests for what I think can improve Ranked from the feedback I’ve received but here are a few things I think we will address for sure:

  • Map Modes – We will probably be removing a certain mode to help keep the battle dynamic
  • Top Score Star – It’s something we are going to rework for sure. Possibly expand it to the top 2-3 players or a more drastic change to the system
  • DD – Some of this will be solved by the new MM as the recent Ranked season was running on the old code. Reworking the rewards for EXP and Credits for other actions is another big part of the puzzle here
  • Tier level is still being decided. We are looking at if there is a comfortable enough level of pop for higher tiers in NA

2 . Right now we don’t have any plans to add or split HMS lines in the near future but it’s something both the community and internally we have been discussing what that split could look like for a while
3 . Hrmm there a bunch of good ones that have escaped my mind the second I read this question of course but Krispy Kreme and Death Pickle are pretty good. Derpitz is up there too probably
 

Q: What’s the Olympic hurdle-looking stuff on top of the middle turrest on the Kaiser?
A: Storing boats or floatplanes and possibly launching? Not sure if that was part of their intended purpose or of its just for the crane to access them
Q: Have you considered doing a tier 2 premium version of the Olympia to benefit preservation?
A: You know, preservation stuff has been interesting; we’ve been thinking about what we can do, and some of our events have done that in the past. We’re thinking about how we can do that in general because it’d be pretty cool to do; I really enjoy it when we can do cross-promotion because then we get to restore a piece of history.

  1. With the last two premiums do you feel like it’s important to distinguish between play styles in game? Like with Light and Heavy Cruisers? Or depend on the community to explain that like in WoT.
  2. Any ETA on the Armor Viewer and Carrier UI rework?
  3. With the T8+ German Battleships getting Sonar, is there a chance for T8+ USN and IJN battleships also getting a unique flair?
  4. In 0.5.10 you adjusted Cyclone parameters, is there still a chance for other weather effects to appear (i.e. “Blizzard”?)
  5. Now that Kitakami is teased that she may return by the end of the year, would this be across all regions?
  6. Leading on from my previous question, in 0.5.10 you “improved the Missions interface” for the game; could this mean that you’re giving Kitakami away only to people that prove themselves capable?
  7. Leading on from my previous question, if not can she still magically appear in my port in the form of a gift?
  1. I think it comes down to us needing to communicate the playstyles and story of each ship. Plenty of ships in our game play differently than another ship in their class but for premiums is really important to be upfront about it. I’m not sure if we will change anything on the in game side but we will definitely look into ways to we can make it obvious in the store or portal or wherever players find it
  2. Armor Viewer is looking like it might make it into 0.5.11, Carrier UI is still a few patches away.
  3. It’s something we are looking into the possibilities but we don’t have any concrete plans yet
  4. Yes, in the future there still maybe other effects like snow or fog. Currently we are looking at the impact of Cyclones on the battle and want to make sure we have the balance and mechanics right before we expand the system
  5. IF she returns, she will certainly return to NA.
  6. This is not the plan at the moment but yes it is technically possible
  7. Yes… for a price

Q: So now that the RN Cruisers have been announced, are RN battleships on the horizon?

Obviously a different country’s next ship line is up. The ‘surprising’ one, as mentioned previously in a Q&A somewhere. Any hint as to which one that is? French? Italian?
Also, are KM DDs and VMF BBs on the horizon too?
A:

  1. Not for this year but they will come for sure. A few trips ago a brought a whole pile of British BB books to dev team upon their request
  2. I can’t spoil all the fun!
  3. German DDs are a possibility but new a VMF line is not currently planned for this year

Q:
Last QueNA
In the last QueNA iku asked:

How do the developers currently feel about high tier destroyer and cruiser balance?

which you answered with

I’ll have to ask the team how they feel about this directly but for me, one of the main issues is that teamplay incentives are not properly rewarded so it encourages bad gameplay and helping your team by spotting is not “worth” most players time when they want to be effective in earning credits/exp

I would like to know if you could ask the team about it in the meantime because it’s getting quite frustrating to see how (excuse me these words now) fucked up the DD balance is between and in the lines. Just an example now:
Is it on purpose that Fubukis C hull isn’t an option? having more AA is fine but why is there no reload time speed up like on Hatsuharu and Mutsuki?
to compare them:
Mutsuki C Hull => No update to the reload time but you can mount a gun upgrade with less reload time. Which Is also only on Hull C avaliable
Hatsuharu B Hull => Looses one gun barrel from one turret and you get a bonus of 1 sec to your reload speed (goes down form 10 to 9 sec) in the remaining barrels. So basically you end up with the same potential damage at a certain time point again due to the better reload (not a huge loss then) as on Mutsuki.
Fubuki C Hull => Fubuki looses 2 gun barrels (hatsu only one) and you don’t get a bonus on the reload time which makes it basically less competitive then the B and A hull. IJN DDs are already punished with their Guns. The health boost don’t really justify the loss of firepower. Why? You loose basically 33% of your gunpower (2 from 6 barrels in total) and you only get ~10% more health. So in a gunfight you might survive 10% longer but you also deal 33% less damage. You won’t kill the enemy faster or at the same speed and you will only die some seconds later because you couldn’t kill the enemy in time (in the case both shoot at the same time and hit with the exact same damage, just one with Hull B and the other one with C). Why is it like that that you beginn with it on T6 and stop with it on T8? Why adding a bigger handicap? On US DDs the AA Hull is optional (if it exists), and offers the same HP as the B hull?
Public test
Was there a reason for not letting us test German BBs? (at least that was the case when i logged into PTS the last time during 0.5.10 testing)
Modding
Are we going to see official Posts from here on the NA/EU server too? http://forum.worldofwarships.ru/index.php?/forum/279-%d1%80%d1%83%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%be%d0%b4%d1%81%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b0-%d0%b4%d0%bb%d1%8f-%d0%bc%d0%be%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%b4%d0%b5%d0%bb%d0%be%d0%b2/
Would be quite nice if you guys could let us also know that there is a test for a modding API, new feature like custom ports ect.? right now we have to cipher google translate texts which isn’t really great :/ At the same time it would be also quite nice if you guys could give us access to required files for the next update during the PT already. Not when the PT is finised and the update hits the main server. Would accelerade updating our stuff.
A:
Balance: Next week or the following on Talking Ship, I’m planning to get some more devs to discuss some of the top issues in ships so hopefully this will cover what you are looking for
PT: This one was a little special due to our plans for Gamescom but in general new lines will be available on PT prior to release
Modding: This something I’m still trying to organize for NA but I haven’t had the spare bandwidth. I’ve recruited some help recently so I’m hoping we can getting the program rolling out in NA in the not so distant future
1, Is there a chance for DD modules to get a bit more health it always feels like I cheated when my HE or Bombs lands near one and they lose something. Feels even worse when I do hit them and they lose three or for things.
2, Any word on Hybrid ships like the BBV Ise or CAV Mogami? You could have it where pressing 3 or something brings up a CV like interface and pressing 1 or 2 switches back to your guns.
3, Is it possible to have the scout planes controllable again but have them only be able to move in an area around your ship, would help with scouting and spotting so CV or DD aren’t the only ones doing it.

  1. You could use the Commander Skill Preventative Maintenance to help keep them alive but its not really an option for a DD since you usually take CE
  2. The interface and gameplay is the hard part we are working on. Being able to control both main guns and planes seamlessly is a challenge. It’s not a top priority right now but it’s something we are working on for the long term
  3. We prefer to not let players control them if we can avoid it. It caused problems for the player and balance when we have that feature. DDs were impacted probably the most but especially new folks would loose focus of what’s happening to thier ship and stop paying attention to how much damage they were taking.

Q: Can we expect to see turret catapults soon? Tangentially, if they are to come will the Arizona’s third turret be repainted?

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the spaceship skins from April Fools 2015 might make a return, or that the possibility was being looked into. Can you add anything to this?
A:

  • I don’t remember if we are planning to add this tech soon or added it in recently but I think its in the plans to add more ships with the turret catapult when appropriate
  • Space ship models aren’t coming back any time soon but there will be more fun modes coming to WOWS for sure. The space ships were actually full model reworks, I remember my “Fletcher” had enough gap between hull sections for a single torp to pass through

1. Any chance ARP ships could receive a perma Type 5 camo (-3% detection/-4% enemy accuracy, no other bonuses)? Mostly if Ranked will continue to have a T7 cap, it’d be nice if they were on the same page as other ships of the tier (that .4km does make a difference).
2. NA was first to receive ARP missions (and they were painful), but ever since has been regularly delayed for NA. Now NA is behind three ships. I know other events can muddy things, but why aren’t the events deployed across all servers at the same time, especially now that “Deal X amount of damage” (which is good) has been settled on?
3. Finally, Ashigara was seen entered into the files as a premium. Will ARP Ashigara eventually use the same model after Ashigara has been tested/put on sale? Or will ARP ships always use the ship model from the Silver line?

  1. It’s a good suggestion, we will think about it
  2. The main issue is regional events overlap with the timeline we decided upon and sometimes we have to shift events around for different regions to accommodate. The NA only Military Month for example but don’t worry all the ARP content will come to NA as well!
  3. As mentioned by dawnofwar11, you can see what the ship looks like already if you check the EU portal

Q: Are you still on track to get 4 lines out in 2016? With British cruisers, that makes 3 lines announced. I heard rumors about german DDs, what’s your opinion on this?
A: Still a strong possibility we can get to a 4th line before the end of the year.

  1. I saw that you added a a new flag for people who attend the “lets battle tour” in 5.10, and if it is indeed something you will hand codes out for in the upcoming events will those of us (me included) that attended the midway event be able to obtain the flag too?
  2. Any update on the status of the ship deformation visuals that were confirmed in a QA several months ago.
  3. Anything new on the ability to mount more then 1 commemorative flag?
  1. Yes! We will be giving them out at our Seattle Let’s Battle Tour event. We should be able to retroactively credit everyone who joined us on Midway if the email you used for eventbrite was the same as the one you use for ships. If not, shoot us a support ticket and we will take care of it
  2. I don’t have info on this one. It’s very likely its not in the plans for 2016
  3. Still not a top priority right now but with all these new flags we gotta figure out something!
1) Any chance wargaming would do like a special sale once in a while on special ships that we haven’t seen in a while like Kitakami, Gremyaschy, Iwaki, Etc. I know gremyaschy is OP but maybe once in while they could put those ships up for sale again?
2)Any chance of more Premium carriers like the saipan?
3)Any Chance Mikasa will be available to Buy?
4) Are there any plans for Russian And German Carriers?
5) Is there any plans for Premium USA or IJN battleships

  1. We did put some of the preorder ships on sale not long ago and rare will come out of the vault occasionally but the three you mentioned will more than likely never go on sale. Kitakami was never sold, Gremy is too strong for us to sell again and Iwaki was an alpha only reward.
  2. I think we will definitely see more premium carriers in the future though we don’t have any more planned for 2016 at this time
  3. It could come to the tech tree or store at some point but I don’t remember if we have a sale planned at the moment since many people earned her for free with the recent in game event
  4. Not for 2016 but maybe one day
  5. We have a few currently in the game but there will be more to come in the future