WoWS EU Q&A with LordofDroid, Kandly, Ph3lan, Tuccy, Conway

Compiled by MrFingersEU

How is the Halloween mode being received according to you?
The first version (low-tier) was well received. The new gamemode with the T8’s is being very well received as well, the matchmaker is very well fed, and it is giving everybody a chance to play a T8 carrier.

The Halloween-mode is also used as test mode for features that can be used in the regular game. The “Filth” might come to the game as “local weather” for specific parts of the map, as opposed to the map-wide Cyclone. Also the consumables that affect teammates are also being investigated (both with perks for the friendly team, and downsides for the enemies).

Isn’t the Halloween gamemode too hard?
It’s designed to be (very) hard to get 5 stars in this gamemode.

Preliminary EU stats regarding clan wars
There are currently 1000 clans with in total 15000 players who have participated in CvC (more than 1 battle played). Most popular rental ship currently is Zao (15%) followed by GK (less than 15%) and then the Shimakaze (9%). Excluding the rentals: Montana & Conqueror (more 25%), followed by Des Moines (21%), Gearing (13%), Henry IV (3%). There were also numbers on Moskva, Hindenburg, but stream was cutting out.

The CV rework, the elephant in the room
It’s a very painful topic. A reason why carriers are not the most widely played class is because they’re not working as intended, they are broken, and devs are all too aware of that. It was, in hindsight, a mistake to say it was going to be fixed in 2017. There is a roadmap for it though, and they are working behind the scenes at fixing it, but the problem is that fixing it requires ripping out the entire AA- and spotting mechanics. Maybe it will be coming in 2018. But it has to be done. Also a reason that they are not in CvC, to play it safe for the first iteration. Maybe they will be included in future seasons.

What about the used timeslots for CvC, and the feedback regarding that
For the “primetime”, they are collecting data and feedback (from forums and players), and will use that for future seasons.

What about upcoming ships and stuff?
SS Kidd is being tested and regarded as “good enough”, so it’s deemed ready for release. Huang He (T6 Pan-Asian cruiser) will still need to looked at. They are close to finish testing the GZ, and will tweak according to testing. No info given on other ships yet. No info about Italian techtree, or French BB’s, but the latter are in the workings (this was known).

Excessive BB-AP damage on DD’s, what’s being done about that?
They are aware of it, and reworks are being tested internally, It however requires a major change because of the ballistics-mechanic. It will be in testing soon in the future.

Will there be improvements on reports & karma?
They are aware they need to do a better job for Karma & reports, but it’s on the backlog.

Why is Sub Octavian more active than WG-EU staff?
Sub is very good in his job, he is very passionate and his posts stand out because he often addresses high-profile issues… But there are a lot of EU-staff posts, but they often go unnoticed. It is what it is, but they are committed to change that, and they have addressed on Reddit that they are aware that they are not that active, and will increase activity in the near future.

Are there any improvements for chat scheduled?
It’s a very split topic: there is a lot of value to chat, but also a lot toxicity coming from it, so it’s a fine balancing act to improve it.

Mods/API, will they be supported?
They are working on consolidating the plan, and will come out with stuff sometime soon. It was dropped in the past, but it will be revamped not too far away.

Steam: why not merging with existing WG accounts?
WoWS was never designed as a cross-platform game, and it was never designed to be integrated, sync progress, … Given the timeframe they were confronted with, separation was the only option. It’s standalone because it binds with Steam, and everything is handled by Steam. Steam-players won’t use the Player center, nor have updates via the launcher,…

Where is the promised poll regarding CvC primetime on the forums?
It will come very soon, no worries.

When will the Khabarovsk get some buffs?
But we’ve just nerfed it? Khabarovsk is doing just fine, and doesn’t require any attention right now.

Why does the 10% clan bonus not stack with specials
I’m not sure… I’ll have to ask Tuccy about that. Tuccy says they are additive, not multiplicative (except Premium), so the Clan-bonus does not make you 10% more competitive.

How do you play the T8 Halloween mode? Any tips?
For BB’s, its all about brawling and close-range fighting, so get into the filth (yes Ph3lan, you can enter the filth!), consumables will make it so you won’t die, use them sacrificial when needed.

CV manual drop in filth is too hard, reticle is hardly visible
Whoopsie!

Why has been decided that Clanwars are T10, and not T7/8
T10 is IMHO the place to be, and we want to give an incentive for players to give them a taste of T10 gameplay with the rentals. They’re being dropped in T10 with their clan, thus new T10 players with their rentals can be educated by more experienced members of their clan, thus benefiting everyone in the end. Nobody got excluded except dedicated CV players. They don’t like that, but it would require too much of a game rebalance in such a short notice to include CV’s.

BB overpopulation
We’re aware of that.

Will the Matchmaker be taking into account XP earned?
The latest version of the matchmaker works fine as it currently is. At some point the effort required to make it “perfect” is too much compared to the benefits that it yields.

Will cruiser secondaries be buffed to harass DD’s more successfully?
That’s not needed, as the main armament is fine enough to nuke DD’s already, especially if they’re close enough for the secondaries to go off.

Hungarian Navy, Best Navy, when?
laughter, but no answer given.

Any buffs for the Prinz Eugen scheduled?
I don’t know, as buffing/nerfing is done via the analysis of the statistics of the ships, so the statistics for Eugen are very likely not too bad, and not too different from Hipper. German Cruisers have been buffed as a whole recently though, so it should be good.

What will be the final reward for “ranking out” in Clan wars?”
You’ll get 1/3 of a flag, after 3 parts you get the Stalingrad Cruiser. No additional rewards planned outside of those already mentioned on the portal.

British smoke buff, also for Belfast?
Ask Tuccy! Tuccy says they don’t know, and has to check.

What will the Musashi cost?
There are numbers floating around, but those are rumors, and are no final figures. It will be expensive, but you can extrapolate the price using known ships (not mentioned if it’s Free XP or doubloons or money or…)

Will there be twitch integration, for instance containers that drop for viewers when the streamer gets an achievement?”
They are working on something for cross-platform integration, but nothing concrete as of yet.

Will the special Special skins also available outside of containers/giveaways?
Maybe in the future, maybe not. For now they’re container exclusive. They won’t share any info regarding this for now.

How many Kutuzovs/Belfasts were not given back after the smoke-fire rework?
We don’t disclose those numbers, we don’t know it from the top of our head either.

Will there be more Scenarios in the future?
They take some time to create, tune & balance them, but they are popular, so there is potential. There will be more scenarios, and rebalancing of current scenarios. Dunkirk might get rebalanced to get it to work for other ships, as it is currently too easy for T5-T6 ships.

Will there be a more historical (hardcore) game mode?
Historical as in no torpedo reload, no flooding repair,… No, that won’t come.
Historical in true-historical: it would require slashing down on ships, the battles will need to last way longer, the ships will move slower, the ships will have to shrink and accuracy will have to be greatly decreased.
“Historical” will likely be restricted to PvE since that allows for “odd-stacking”. Battles were often lobsided, with uneven orders of battle. Balanced historical battles were rare, so that’s where PvE comes in, since PvE doesn’t need to be balanced, where PvP does.

How does splash/module damage work
The size of splash is dependent on the amount of explosives in the shell, the more explosive filler, the bigger the splash. It is nation-flavored though, some nations have a bigger splash for the same filler than other nations. The splash radius is uniform, which means that the damage does not drop off the further you go from the impact point, and there is no need to be a direct line of sight between an area and the point of impact. The entire splash zone gets obliterated.
For modules: it has its own HP pool. The bigger the module, the higher its HP pool. A BB gun has more HP than an AA gun, so one volley that can take out multiple AA guns might not be enough to take out a BB gun. Armour has an impact, most noticeable on AA mounts. Open mounts are easier to take out than half-enclosed, and way easier than fully enclosed mounts. Tough armor has a 100% splash protection. You can’t blow up BBs anymore with a 5” HE shell, so no Yamato detonation with a US DD shell by proximity-exploding as was the case in CBT.