WoWS Q&A – 12th April 2017

Q2: Yes, you have all chances to see some love for KM cruisers starting from Hipper/Eugen. Hopefully, in 0.6.4. But not with Hydro/DFAA combo. Stay tuned!

Question:

Q1:With the removal of stealth firing, how is destroyer faring from Wargaming side of view? Particularly I am concerned about premium destroyer that had not received range compensation like some IJN DD (namely Anshan and Blyskawica, not so much for Gremy)

Q2: Are there any work going on for a new gamemode? As an avid player, I am getting bored of the same old camping, passive meta.

Q3: Is there any plan to sell Hood with a bundle of detonation flag?

Answer:

A1: Right now, Gremy, Anshan and Blyskawica are scoring one of the best results within their groups. They are not blatantly overperforming, but definitely they are among top ships. We don’t think we should improve them in their current state, because this will lead to imbalance.

A2: Yes.

A3: Hey, do you think we are fond of trolling our players?

Question: Already grinded my Grozovoi. So three questions:

Q1: When new rushian ships (cuz community cant have enough)?

Q2: When the most famous signal flag in rushian naval history – the XGE signal – will be introduced?

Q3: Leningrad had to go for a 2 year reconstruction after reaching 41 knots on trials due to hull deformation. The ship was advised not to attempt turning when in full speed and not to shoot guns in salvos due to the risk of breaking into parts after such maneuver. When will this historically accurate feature of both Leningrad and Minsk be introduced?

Answer:

A1: No RU lines are scheduled for the near future We ran out of Stalinium ore, so we have nothing to build them from. Although, we may try to use our balalaikas, at least for low-tier warships.

A2: That’s NOT the spirit, man. Always rush B, never XGE, live your dream!

A3: I guess we need to put it in queue of other historically accurate features that have no point in being in PC game, probably somewhere after USSR always winning the WWII.

Question: Hello

Q1: On Discord you mentioned looking into reworking IJN torps. Do you have any ideas you could share?

Q2: Regarding Shimakaze-did you consider buffing her concealment? It feels underwhelming to have Gearing spot you when you spot him, and he is a much better gunboat. Thus making Gearing just as effective for scouting.

Q3: Have you considered buffing normalizations angles for KMF CAs, by just a little bit?

Q4: Any news one new epic campaign?

Q5: What do you currently think of meta in general? Does it need critical improvements etc.?

Q6: How is the CV rework coming along? I am anxious to play my favourite class again.

Q7: Do you think there are currently too many BBs? E.g. in EU, I feel like there are 5 BBs on avg per team each game.

Answer:

A1: Yes. F3 and Type93 mod.3 may be buffed in 0.6.4. We will keep watching their performance, and plan further tweaks, if necessary. We may also address Yugumo and her torpedo armament in future updates. (Addition: Spotting range, 1.8km for F3 and 1.7km for mod.3 seem like a good spot. Mod.3 for Yugumo is considered as well as a possible buff, however, not for 0.6.4.)

A2: No. Shimakaze is going to receive turret rotation speed buff and main torpedo (Type93+F3) buff in 0.6.4.

A3: No. There are some problems with high-tier KM cruisers, so we plan to address them in 0.6.4, starting from Hipper/Eugen.

A4: It is in development. Surely I have no right to spoil the surprise for you

A5: It is not perfect, and never will be, but it is rather healthy, apart from several local problems. It continuous monitoring and tweaking.

A6: Sorry, but it’s too early to talk about further plans. We’re studying the effects of CV UI tweaks right now.

A7: There is slight overabundance on some realms/tiers, not everywhere across the game. We are working on it.

Question: Will the t6 mm be fixed? Will the lo yang and eugen receive buffs in the near future?

Answer: T6 MM works as it should work. Nothing to fix here right now. Eugen is going to receive a buff along with other high tier KM cruisers in 0.6.4. Lo Yang buff is currently not planned.

Question: How long does it take to create a map from scratch? What are the key points when you guys are making maps? Do you prefer ‘mirrored’ (as in virtually the same when looked from both spawns) or when there’s some more variety to it?

Answer: Well, it depends. “Dummy” creation (purely for gameplay test) is around 1 week in Game Design dept. Then, it may take several weeks to polish the dummy with internal playtesting (or it can be discarded). Then, if the dummy is good, it goes to Level Art. These guys need around 6 weeks to prepare all visuals for the map, and 3 weeks to prepare some misc objects like houses, castles, etc. Both mirrored and not mirrored maps have pros and cons.

Question:

Q1: 0.6.4 brings a new great looking port (Thanks for that) but Port UI is still laggy (even on PCs with enough power). Any plans to fix that?

Q2: How was the post 0.6.3 patch feedback on

1. CVs and the removal of alt attack on low tiers
2. The USN CA buff

Answer:

A1: Right now, number one priority about port performance are tooltips. We’re working on optimization pack for them.

A2:1. Many players were sceptical about alt.attack, which is understandable. As for CV new controls, this is to be researched. 2. It was pretty good.

Question:

Q1: is it possible to have customised clan flags ?

Q2: when is scheduled the FX improvement ?

Q3: You seem convinced to give as national favor : speed boost ability to the French. I took a look at some CC review and imo at the moment this national favor is “meh”. As per their naval history, the French liked also to use Dye explosive shells . Why not give it to the French ? This shell will not do a lot of damage but will reduce the dispersion of the next consecutive shot on the marked target during some limited time.

Answer:

A1: Yes, but probably not this year. Clan dev plan is pretty tight, and there are more important features there.

A2: This year. No exact ETA yet, sorry.

A3: Thank you for this suggestion, but it is unlikely that it will be needed for French cruisers identity.

Question:

Q1: I have brought this up before, but can add the option to display your own ship’s radar and hydro ranges to the minimap?

Q2: Any plans on improving the smoke timer? I find that the original smoke timer mod is more useful than the in-game version.

Q3: Any plans to display the ship’s firing arcs in port? Currently the only way to determine the firing arcs for torpedoes and main turrets is to actually use the ship itself in battle.

Q4: How does WG view the Target Acquisition System Modification upgrade, obtainable on Tier 8+ ships in the last slot? Most players consider it a noob trap at best as the concealment upgrade, steering gear upgrade, and even the radar upgrade are considered vastly superior.

Q5: When will WG introduce Epicenter on Two Brothers?

Answer:

A1: Yes, it is in development.

A2: Why do you think it is more useful? If you feel any UI component needs to be improved, don’t hesitate to leave your feedback in relevant section of your game forum.

A3: not planned, but nice idea to be considered

A4: It increases detection in close encounters and boosts torpedo detection. It is a valid choice for many ships.

A5: No information on that

Question: I’ve been playing DDs a lot lately and I saw lots of instances where battleship AP shells did excessive damage to my ships. Shouldn’t battleship AP shells be limited to overpen damage only versus DDs, so battleship captains have to make a conscious decision what ammunition to use against which target?

Answer: Not every large caliber should have overpens on soft targets at any angle, and this is fine. We’d rather not simplify this aspect of gameplay.

Question: Regarding the recent IJN DD changes, I think I’m one of the very few who appreciates the range buffs, as I like using my IJN DD guns a lot on unsuspecting targets. I’m also really excited for the turret traverse buffs, which will help my playstyle more. My question is that since you’re already starting out on improving the gameplay comfort of IJN DDs, and you’ve mentioned that balancing torps is rather a delicate issue, with regards to the main line DDs, how about giving them a separate slot for the torpedo reload booster? I don’t really mind if you do really minor touches or don’t even touch the torps themselves, having the torp reload booster will be a godsend to them, especially Kagerou and Yuugumo, seeing as they’re worse torpedo platforms than the American, German, or even the Russian DDs. Also as follow up, may I suggest fixing the spellings of most IJN ships to reflect the long vowels in their names? The ARP ships and Yuugumo are properly spelled according to their romanized names, but the tech tree ships aren’t.

Answer: Hi, thank you for your suggestion and opinion on IJN guns. People really need to use these more. So the only thing I can say about torpedo reload booster is that it probably should be removed from Shiratsuyu. Other than that, we’re quite happy with how it works on the ships we gave it. Kagerou looks good among T8 DDs. Shima and Yugumo will get some love

Question:

Q1: Do you look at competitive aspects, and top 5% as a rule primarily for balancing ships? You mentioned before you account for top 5%, median, and bottom 5%, what kind of weightage do these various stats have when you decide to balance? Are you more concerned about the average playerbase, or the high-skilled subset of players?

Q2: What was the reason for the decision to buff the Yugumo/Shima’s torps? As you no doubt have noticed, I’ve been reasoning with you for buffs for many months, but up to just a week ago you said they were fine. Why the sudden change in direction?

Q3: This is an entirely new topic, about CV’s and the new disengage ability. I don’t play CV’s much in the past year, so I don’t have any recent firsthand experience in it, but on paper doesn’t the Saipan gain a huge advantage over other Tier 7 CV’s with this? Because their planes are so fast and have so much ammo, they can pretty much disengage at will and outrun enemy fighters. The only counter to Saipan’s fighters used to be to catch them while they are occupied with a target to be able to destroy them, due to their speed. Are you not worried that Saipan’s fighters may become too oppressive with this ability, since she doesn’t lose anything from it?

Q4: Are you considering removing or changing the Air Superiority commander skill when the CV rework comes?

Answer:

A1: I am not sure why people think we’re looking only at top 5% cases – it is wrong. We try to review as many relevant data as possible. The difference between 5%/median/5% helps us to see skill-dependance of a ship and offers better evaluation compared to just average server stats. This is it. We don’t balance ships only around top 5%.

A2: We had series of internal meetings and did additional analysis on the problem. That includes community opinions and argument, statistics and our personal internal discussion. And we decided to give this buff a try. The main reason we did not want to touch these torps is that they have risk of hurting not only their main target – BBs – but other classes as well. No one wants torpedo soup comeback. Everyone wants better balanced DDs. Right? RIGHT?)) As for the choice of torpedos, the only underperforming IJN DDs right now are Shima and Yugumo, that’s why we decided to tweak F3 and mod.3. I think it will be a decent buff for Shima, along with turret rotation, however, Yugumo will probably need some more love later. We’ll see.

A3: We are planning a research on impact of latest CV changes. Right now, I personally would not make any conclusions.

A4: It’s too early for this question, sorry.

Question: What do you think of the new Super upgrades? Are they fulfilling their intended role and are they used by the playerbase? Can we expect more of them? Also, I’d like to add that I actually like the direction you took with those new upgrades, however, I feel the “cost” of using them (sacrificing more general purpose upgrades) is too high on many ships, making them feel not so “Super”. Are there any plans to alleviate this cost and make those upgrades feel more powerful than the regular ones?

Answer: Overall, we think they are a good addition. We’re reviewing their statistics to determine any necessary tweaks. And more of them will be coming in the future updates These upgrades are not intended to be noticeably more powerful – they should be different and allow new gameplay opportunities.

Question: Any news on USN cruiser line split? The reason I ask is because with the buff to 155mm Mogami’s I feel like you guys are maybe testing out how a cruiser with 15 6″ guns and IFHE will fare, getting ready to possibly release a Brooklyn class either as a premium or in a split-tree USN cruiser line. Anything you can tell us about that?

Answer: No news, and not planned for any of the foreseeable updates.