Source: Sub_Octavian, Reddit.
alphalex23
Привет комрад. Greetings from RU. I have 2 questions.1.Any chance of account transfer between servers becoming reality? 2. Will there ever be a buff USN cruisers? Ships like the New orleans and Pensacola seem to have been eclipsed by power creep.
Helloes! 1.Very low chance. I would say “no chance”, but you know, never say never. 2.New Orleans will be buffed in 0.5.13 by re-visiting her armor and damage model. There are no immediate plans for other USN cruiser currently, but there may be other tweaks and re-works in the future.
Mobius_Einherjar
Thanks for doing these! In the past, you have buffed premium ships that were already performing well for the sake of historical accuracy (most notably Tirpitz). My question is, will you do the same with the Dunkerque? There are two areas worthy of attention:
The lack of turret compartmentalization. On a ship with only two turrets, losing even one means losing half of your firepower. The French designers identified this problem and came up with a solution to reduce the chances of the entire turret being taken out of action, and it proved to be effective during the attack at Mers el Kebir. This is one of Dunkerque’s (and Richelieu’s) strength, yet it is not represented in game in any way.
The torpedo defense system. According to a friend, naval historian John Jordan names Dunkerque’s TDS as being second only to Richelieu and Yamato. In game however, forget about even being second best (as Richelieu isn’t in yet): It’s not even the best at its own tier. In fact, only Warspite and Bayern have a worse TDS at T6.
There’s also another point, albeit less important: Firing range. I know that it’s kind of an arbitrary value in game, but IRL the Dunkerque could fire at up to ~41km while Fusou topped at ~35km, yet in game Dunkerque has a 18.2km firing range and Fusou 21.8km. While I usually wouldn’t mind this too much, given the inherent fragility of Dunkerque and how often it meets ships that can overmatch its armor, wouldn’t it be a good idea to give it a range more representative of the advantage it had in real life? I understand you might be averse to this as you don’t want more sniping BBs (I don’t either, I like midrange fights a lot more), but when you are facing teams filled with only T8, T7, Warspites and Bayerns (which happens far too often when playing Dunkerque), then you become a bit limited. Again, the range is not the biggest deal, but I’d really like to have an answer regarding the turrets and the TDS. Thanks again for doing this!
We would not buff Tirpitz if this caused her to overperform, as we do not support pay-to-win.
Turret compartmentalization is a new potential game mechanics, which we currently don’t consider viable. Dunkerque is not the only ship that has some kind of internal turret protection. However, its peculiarity was considered when determining turret HP value.
TDS in World of Warships is calculated by unified formula with using IRL specs. There’s no reason to change it on individual ships without very strong argument. Its nature makes any assessment quite difficult.
Maximum firing range in game is initially calculated as range where you can reliably see the target (and adjust your aim). Fire-control system position and quality is taken into account. But then balance tweaks may be applied, if needed. Very important thing to understand is that effective ingame range will be shorter than maximum firing range IRL. E.g. Yamato technically has 42 km firing range, but in game it is 26,6 km. Because this is the range we calculate as “confident aquisition and tracking of average target”. This method is both logical and good for gameplay. Fuso has higher FCS position, so, it has greater distance of decent target acquisition and tracking. Your wording “could fire at up to” is correct, and it does NOT mean “could reliably hit other ship at up to”.
Anyways, I feel your post was more about Dunkerque buff, so, I assure you we will pay extra attention to her perforamce, and will take action if needed.
ZomBry
Do you have any plans to tune down the current AA power creep? Right now, I would rather strike a USN Cruiser than a German Battleship and I feel as if the German BBs getting insane AA DPS [looking at you Gnei], kinda detracts from the USN’s supposed strength of AA. With RN CLs on the way with supposed high AA without DF, this is seriously becoming a huge problem for CV players since the economy change has been a negative for them so far, TAE’s bug in where instead of TBs getting a reload buff, it’s the DBs instead, and of course, the fact that the UI is very buggy are all contributing to the quick decline of players playing CVs.
There are no plans for AA nerf in the nearest future.
Economy change has not been negative according to our data, but it had more focus on air superiority and support, which may have lead to problems with some players. On the other hand, CV’s got massive cost reduction for lost planes.
TAE bug was fixed in 0.5.12.1.
Known UI bugs are being fixed in the normal pipeline.
We do realize that there are some problems with CV, but they will not be solved fast, this is something we should address thoroughly, maybe even on overhaul level. One of the main problems is that it is very difficult to be average player – most people have either godlike superiority or almost nothing on CV. There is lack of “CV middle class”, if I may say so.
Anihe
Greetings /u/Sub_Octavian These are just as much suggestions as they are questions, but here we go:
Battle information: Do you plan giving players more information on the fly, instead of getting most information in the summary? Imagine the effect on teamplay when a BB see right away their XP gained on their 2 overpens on a DD, or the DDs XP from spotting damage or capping. Take a look at Battlefield for example. You instantly see your reward when you hit someone. Showing players what works and not, will benefit every team.
Team information: Do you have any plans to further develop team communication? It would be great if we could state our intentions; I tag C as my destination and its shown on my icon, and everyone will know what. Using just chat makes it cluttered. Keep a marked target, targeted for longer, and other vessels in close range can’t be marked. You could even have a bonus for doing damage to marked targets.
Ranked: Here is my definition on ranked; An induvidual rank, based on a random teams performance in a team-based game. Im all in for an induvidual rank, but the dependency on your team is too high for an induvidual rank. If you do good, you should progress, and not take a step back. There is no difference between ranked and team battles besides that you know your team and have voicecom in teambattles. Again look at a game like Battlefield; If your team is good you’ll do better than with a bad team. But you can still progress with an induvidual effort. What are your thoughts on ranked for the future?
Hi!
Battle: in this respect we stick with WoT approach, and for a good reason. If we go completely open with that, this may harm gameplay in unpredictable way. Apparently most players will immediately switch to economical approach from teamplay, fun or any other personal preferences. Battlefield is an amasing game, but there, economy is not as important as in World of Warships. So the comparison is not viable. History WoT RU example: introduction of unofficial ratings (based on defence points, and then, WN8) caused thousands of players to adjust their playstyle, often in abusive way. And this was just an unofficial rating. So, while your suggestion is interesting, I should say we already considered and put off such feature.
Team: yes, we plan. Your suggestion is very interesting, by the way. Thank you! We are aiming to have improvement pack for team communication somehere in 2017, but no details yet. We’re curretnly building the design for it, and it’s hard to tell whether we do slight improvements or major overhaul with new features.
Ranked: we are not against personal ratings, but we believe Ranked mode is better off with current system. We do not plan to make it more hardcore. However, it is a nice idea to have some events with hardcore personal ratings. We will think about it.
Draken84
“The part you are talking about is included in the citadel because it was valuable initially (torpedo armament storage) and it is protected accordingly: 25 mm citadel deck you mentioned; 32 mm deck you cannot see in port viewer currently (it is bow internal deck); 152 mm belt (you can see a part of it behind anti-torpedo bulge; 102 mm transverse (in game 102 mm layer is a sum of several IRL bulkheads); It is located underwater and extremely hard to hit.”
is the intent to add this to the armor viewer ? if it gives us a picture this misleading then it’s not a terribly useful feature, that this area is hard to hit is not something i contest, it’s the fact it’s listed as part of the citadel in the first place, it’s a significant portion of the ship’s length that this addition to the citadel represent, and it’s adversely affecting the survivability of the vessel, even if it’s hard to hit it’s still possible.
“Most part of damage to Warspite is bow/aft/casemate/superstructure, so this part does not play a vital role in ship in-game performance. On the other hand it is logical to be included in the citadel, remembering its initial function and armor (these are two main criteria).”
why is it logical to include this ? it’s not containing anything critical for the ship’s ability to fight unless you consider earl grey tea a critical component of the fighting strength of the warship, there is a armored bulkhead towards the actual magazines (as far as i recall) of equal thickness to what is seen above these rooms so all in all it seems like it’s more or less a case of “here, have a citadel that is 10-15% larger than it should because there used to be something potentially dangerous in this area!” it doesn’t seem reasonable, it doesn’t seem logical, are you going to add similar “features” to other former-torpedo carrying warships such as the Bayern class ?
Yes there is intent, of course. It was stated in version 0.5.11 patchnotes, here’s the quote:
“For some ships, selected armor types may include additional internal armor. While it won’t display in this update for technical reasons, rest assured it is there in the armor model:
Internal citadel armor. Example: magazine armor for Kawachi and Wyoming
Internal ends armor. Example: Iowa steering engine armor, internal decks; bulkheads on Tirpitz, Bismarck, Iowa, North Carolina
Internal decks of casemates, hangars (for aircraft carriers) and auxiliary locations like part of the armored deck on Amagi.
We plan to display these separate details in future updates.”
As for logic, as I said, we detemine citadel both by armor and function. This is systematic approach with very few exceptions. You metioned Bayern, for example, its torpedo compartments are not armored. So, this feature does not apply to her.
Anyways, we see that this question is important to the community, so we will perform additional detailed research of Warspite current state and effeciency. If we find out it is somehow underpeforming unfairly, we will act. For now we don’t have such data, but perhaps we will find out something new when going deeper into subject.
MrFingersEU
Sub_Octavian, thanks for the effort you want to put in those Q&A’s. Coming from the EU, it’s really nice to have a somewhat direct line with the dev’s (they are absent on the official EU forums). A question: What do the statistics say about the Warspite’s performance since 0.5.9 (when her draft got lowered a bit, but she now is more often the lowest tier BB in matches) compared to her pre-0.5.9 performance. Are adjustments needed to her to make her more competitive in especially Tier VIII matches (she is quite slow and doesn’t have the range to succesfully engage targets without being burned to a crisp by high-tier Cruisers that outrange her)
Thank you for your kind words.
Your question was partially addressed above. Quick stats overview does not give me any indication that there’s problem with Warspite.
She has decent popularity for T VI premium;
She has 3rd place in winrate among T VI BBs (There are 6 of them: Arizona, Bayern, Dunkerque, Fuso, New Mexico and Warspite);
She has 4th place in avg. damage dealt among other T VI BBs.
She may have shown slightly better results in old meta and MM, but she doesn’t look underperforming.
However, as I said above, this should be researched in more detail. We will try to do it in a couple of weeks, and if there is any need for tweaks, we will put them into nearest version possible. We are 100% for consistent experience when possible, especially with premium ships.
ChineseMaple
Thanks for the detailed response, Sub! I really appreciate you doing this and being so actively engaged with the community. Regarding the release of ARP Takao, we have heard that she, like the Atago, has been rewarded with heal on the RU servers. Some of us were surprised to hear this, as we initially expected Takao to, essentially, be a non-premium version of Atago right down to the lack of heal, seeing as the unofficial but common factor revolving most premiums is that they have some sort of “Quirk’ that distinguishes themselves from tech tree options. The Atago is regarded by many, and I think rightfully so, to be the Queen of T8 Cruisers, beating out even the Mikhail Kutuzov in terms of sheer versatility and power. The fact that she has a heal has contributed greatly to her rise, and now that Takao is fielded with heal and will likely be the second-best option for T8 Cruisers, it seems that other options will be regarded even less. With Takao’s release, is it possible that T8 Cruisers will see an array of changes in the near future, if the data for Takao suggests there is a need? I have heard players complain about the general status of T8 Cruisers and how they may need heal to be able to compete within their own tier – will heal ever come to all T8 Cruisers, even in a reduced state? TL;DR – Takao was released, apparently with heal. Atago is regarded as the best T8 CA. Takao will likely be second best as an Atago clone. Will this possibly cause a series of re-balancing tweaks for T8 CAs, which is widely regarded as dominated by the Atago?
Hello, and you’re welcome.
Actually, Atago is very good, but currently it is not the best T8 cruiser, if we look at average damage, frag and win rate. However, average server stats often differ from personal experience (obviously).
So, yes, we released ARP Takao, she is a very good ship (which is easy to obtain), but, judging by current meta and overall background, we don’t have any global re-balancing plan. We buffed cruisers with rudder mod slighly. We are also buffing New Orleans and Mogami in 0.5.13. We will keep an eye for underperforming ships, so more local changes may be done in future. But as for global changes, we would like to avoid them for now: they are quite stressful for players and are not needed currently.
Racound
I feel like the communication between WG EU, Asia/Sea and NA is severely lacking and community efforts are mostly on the side of WG NA. Are there any plans to uniform this? During the launch of WoWS I saw huge improvements or at least the drive to change this but we are back to “everyone does their own thing” and it is rather… annoying to say the least. Two examples:
- Some time ago there was a WoWS Stream from WG NA where they said “give me your username and we get you something nice” – as I am playing on the EU server… I never heard back from them
- The ARP Missions, SEA and NA have more diversified missions while EU… “get 1 Mio dmg, then get 2k shell hits, then get 2 mio dmg and after that another 3k shell hits” In general it seems that WG EU keeps making events that are catered to the more hardcore players…
Hi. There’s special local team for each region that determines regional strategy and priorities, having the best knowledge about respective playerbase. A this moment I can only communicate your feedback to relevant teams. I am sorry for not being helpful here, but I focus on game developement rather than service, please keep that in mind while you going through my Q&A.
LordFjord
Thanks again for taking the time for the Q&As. My question would be:
Would WG give us details about the WoWs replay format?
This post by Aerroon made me think that it would be great to have a community made replay player that can show the match without loading the game. I am thinking about a map-like view display with ship positions as a start but basically step by step include all data of the replay. I know I’d try my luck with making an opensource replay viewer. Having data about each game tick with the position and data of all objects would be awesome. The match setup header in XML is already somewhat readable, but the actual replay data is (I guess) compressed and/or encrypted. Wouldn’t this be a win-win for WG and the players? edit: pros/cons of a community made replay viewer:
cons:
no shiny ingame graphics/sounds
pros:
open source, most likely github project
it’s no mod and beside the file format in no way connected to WoWs
downward compatibility could be possible, you could watch old replays
possible to add in lots of additional info about each ship’s status
maybe possible to recreate end stat screen from match data
once the replay format is known, it is like a goldmine for statistics (how often have I sunk <user xyz>? for example).You could track your own stuff better than any current 3rd party stat site currently can do.
You are welcome!
Your idea is very appealing. However, we currently do not have API solution capable of what you’re talking about. And we do not thing it’s reasonable to develop it. There are two reasons:
We are working on replay player already, and we believe it should be in vanilla client. Roughly speaking, most features you want are already planned for it (although, I cannot share details yet).
We have very intense workload now, and if we plan what you’re asking, that would be done after we develop vanilla player (which won’t make much sense).
Because of that two reasons, we are going to stick with our current plan and develop our own player.
Thank you for your input!
fnord_disc
Can you please introduce some mid-to-high-tier Japanese premiums? I know that Atago is a great ship, but I have my reasons for not wanting to buy it. I have been waiting for a Japanese premium at T6 or T7 for more than a year now and there still isn’t any. And the only T8 to choose from is Atago. The only destroyer premiums we have are Minekaze clones which aren’t sold and poison the lower tiers and the only battleship premium is the T4 Ishizuchi. I don’t understand why the range of Japanese premiums is so incredibly poor.
Can you explain how you choose which shells to use? You chose WW2 coastal artillery shells for Kaiser/König (the L4,9 shells) and for Yorck’s HE, so their ballistics are really amazing. But you didn’t give (for example!) South Carolina its upgraded shells, so it uses those old 4crh pre-WW1 shells with horrible ballistics.
Can you explain why Yamato has so much better drag on its shells compared to other Type 91 shells? It’s possible that you used the Type 1 as a reference instead which had a longer ballistic cap, but the difference shouldn’t be as large as it is in the game.
What happened when you developed the Type 92 torpedo? As far as I can tell, someone looked up the wrong torpedo and used stats from the Type 95 oxygen torpedo instead. There is no other way to reach that 68kn speed setting (I have accounted for how the game converts historical speeds).
Why does the Type 93 mod. 3 have such “low” damage? I know it has the highest damage of any torpedo in the game, but the warhead is enormously huge. The damage should be even higher to be consistent with other Type 93 torpedoes.
We can, and we will do it. Obviously, there’s a gap that needs to be filled, so it will be filled in the future. There’s no specific reason for that gap, it was more the matter of finding the right ships for the role and finding enough reference to create them in game.
Initially we find as much matching shells as we can. Then, we choose the exact model according to balance needs. In most cases, that would be the newest model.
Because this is YAMATOOO for Poseidon sake..ok, sorry, I make terrible jokes. The reason is shell weight. 460 mm shell weighs approx. 1460 kg, and 410 mm – approx. 1020 kg. Roughly speaking, the difference is around 40%. Then, we need to account for gun barrel specs – it influences angular rotation, which impacts air resistance (larger angular rotation -> larger projectile surface ->larger air resistance ->worse ballistics).
You’re right with this question. This inconsistency is quite old (from Beta), and was caused by balance needs. In one of the future updates Type 92 model will be removed from DD branch.
Torpedo damage is calculated by our own formula, where main parameter is IRL amount of explosive. When all torpedoes are determined by that unified formula, we have better balanced stats and more systematic approach, but can have some deviations from IRL logic (which is OK for a game).
Greydmiyu
Ooo, thought of another question. Why is premium time included in the average XP calculation, even at the API level? Base XP is used as a metric on how well or poorly someone has done in a round, but that is not what is reported.
Our API utilizes the same approach as in WoT. We believe that real metrics you are looking for are average player tier, average damage and win rate. AFAIK, established user ratings in WoT do not use XP at all.
godzilla5549
Is there any particular reason why the Mark 15 torpedoes used on Benson have a detection range of just 1.1 km? It doesn’t seem to make sense from either a game balance or a historical perspective. The Mark 15 torpedo was not like the Type 93 (which used Oxygen). Also, the Benson gets an excellent torpedo density with the 5×2 launcher system, meaning that with the 1.1 km detection, the torpedoes are incredibly hard to spot. Benson already does everything better than its IJN same-tier counterpart, so I do not know why it needs to have better torpedo capabilities.
Yes, the main reason is 55 kt spped (and the speed skill can tweak it, but you also need Superintendent on Benson). Overall, if we compare them with Fubuki Type 93 mod.2, Mark 15 DR won’t seem that important:
Range: 9.2 km (6.4 km ship DR) – 8 km (5.5 km DR). I’d call it a draw;
Damage: 16663 – 20967;
RL: 109,8 s (with torp skill, whis is not so popular on this ship) – 81 s (and here, this skill is widespread);
Loadout: 2×5 vs 3×3 – IMO, 3×3 is more versatile.
So the decision on DR was made so that Benson torps would not look too pale.
You should realize that the main Benson feature is flexibility, but it loses in particular profiles. We believe each of T VIII DD has its pros and cons, and thay are decently balanced agains each other.
Mar7coda6
This is just a question of curiosity but why does the Leningrad have a single piece of German AA in the form of a double 37mm on the stern of the ship?
Ah, the history part!
So the initial armament was 5-130/50-mm B-13, 2-76/550-mm 34K, 2-45-mm 21K.
In 1941-42 she received 76/55-mm twin 81K from Marat battleship.
In 1944 45-mm 21K were removed, and she received 4-37-mm 70K and 1×2-37-mm C-30 (German SKC/30 on Dopp LC-30 mount).
So, it is historically accurate.
Zahared
Can you please clone yourself and come to EU server? Or at least whip WG EU into some kind of form, because there is much critics about their performance (or rather lack of it) lately.
I am afraid the team won’t bear two sarcastic guys with bad jokes, so I am showing mercy and not cloning myself. Thank you for the suggestion, though.
Feedback is sent, and I suggest we stick with Game Developement questions in future – I am not whipping enthusiast, especially at workplace.
Purche
Thanks for this Q&A. When I use my CV I would really like to see the ship names on the tactical map, not the names of the player. Do you plan to add this option to the game? Or maybe I´m just a noob and to blind to find this setting?
You are welcome! Your vision is fine – there’s no such feature now. But it will be added in one of the future updates.
EvilEyeMonster
I have a question regarding rank season The Current Tiering for this reason is fantastic, it has very good balanced ships in both Tiers 6-8, my question is for those players who get left behind at rank 15 and unable to progress due to not having a tier 8 ship, How easy would be to implement a bracket system for Tier 6 players to progress past rank 15 and onwards to Rank 1 but with lower rewards, for example Once a player reaches rank 15, Players can choose to split off either into the Tier 6 bracket or Tier 8 bracket, once they rank up to 14 they are unable to go back and choose T8, and must continue onwards
It’s a good idea! Unfortunately, we cannot implement it technically right now – we would have to reduce the number of seasons per year in this case. However, we are planning experimental unscheduled season, which, I hope, you will like. Of course, I cannot tell you the details right now. Again, your idea is really interesting, and we will keep it just in case. Thank you!
HowDidYouDoThis
Thanks for answering my CV questions. How can a player get involved with the devs in terms of balancing out the CV ?
You are welcome. I believe it’s good to raise such questions here and/or on your regional forums. Popular and discussed ideas naturally come to greater attention.
nekolas564
Since before last ranked season you guys worked out and implemented a new reward system that takes into account the performance of multiple seasons (jolly roger token+flint). Good job on that by the way. My question is if you can give some information on the future of this feature; not necessarily revealing any specifics. Like, will there be a new ship reward for season 6? If yes, will it replace flint or will they run simultaneously (the new ship only being available to those who already have flint+new JRs?). Any answer in any capacity you are allowed to share is appreciated
Thanks! We are not going to replace Flint now, we like the system and are not against introducing more rewards in the future. But this is all I can say for now.
