Thanks to Carnotzet.
1. I’m interested to know if the next ship branch will include CV’s? If so, what will be their particularities?
A. No. The next ships to be released will be from other classes.
2. It’s no secret that Tashkent is played less frequently in team battles than other DD’s. Couldn’t you give her like a short range radar? Or something else, that would make her more in line with the other DD’s in team battles?
A. No, we don’t plan to give her something similar to what you suggested. On the other hand, we plan to give a slight but nice buff to several Soviet DD’s stats, in addition to the partial fix for “turrets getting destroyed when someone sneezes at them”. It should get better. Moreover, team battles is a separate format in which mechanics are different, so it’s quite normal.
3. I wanted to join team battles but couldn’t. Was it linked with my chat ban or is it an error?
A. Indeed. It’s not an error.
4. Could you please share with us Iwaki Alpha stats regarding her performance now and two patches ago?
A. Win rate: 62.8% => 53.9%
Average damage: 38’000 => 30’000
5. Why isn’t there a medal for detonating enemies, it could be something like Lucky shot?
There’s already a medal for being detonated but not for causing a detonation. With such a medal, players could know straightaway they detonated another ship and could track how many detonation they caused.
A. We’ll think about it. Thanks you for your suggestion!
6. Wasn’t there another way to nerf Kiev than to reduce her HP? It’s not really logical that a ship with more displacement has considerably less HP.
A. It was an effective way to nerf it. Nevertheless, in the near future, Kiev will be slightly buffed.
7. When will you allow tier 9 ships to take part in team battles?
A. It’s not set in stone. We don’t believe that adding tier 9 ships to team battles now will be beneficial. I believe it will come soon, we still need to decide.
8. Many players complain about the delay between detecting a ship and it appearing on the screen. More than once, when I sail with a DD and encounter the same DD (and thus with the same concealment), there’s a 2s delay between the time of detection and the time it appears. I get detected, already see volleys of shells flying at me and only then do I see the DD appear. What’s up with that?
A. We’re working on it. This issue is being investigated by our programmers.
Evil_Penguin_ (Russian Moderator) had a stream with Vallter_ (Russian community manager) where the latter answered quite a lot of questions.
1. Could you please tell us how far is the development of RN CV’s or German BB’s? If it’s more than 60 percent, then it’s not that bad.
A. As we said in our announcement video for 2016, we will release German BB’s next. I reckon they will come at the end of Summer, beginning of Fall. This is a very broad time line since BB’s are the most time consuming class in terms of modelling. RN CV’s wont come this year, and it’s quite hard to tell when they’ll be released.
2. When will the new ranked season start?
A. I understand players are waiting for the new season to start. We still need to analyse all the feedback we have received. The main topic we’re discussing is how to improve ranked battles since, in the previous season, there were some aspects that weren’t successful and that could be reworked. One of the requests was that top players of the losing team don’t lose a star and bottom players of the winning team lose one. It’s certain we will change how stars are earned. The question is to know how it will be done. However, we still need to discuss this since we have to take all the different aspects into consideration. This is not an easy decision because certain roles aren’t rewarded with xp such as when a CV keeps a DD spotted with his planes. So, a player can forfeit his effectiveness in favour of a better chance at victory. That’s why need to think about it; I, for myself, am in favour of top players not losing a star.
3. Will the general format of ranked battles be changed (number of stars needed to advance in ranks, number of players on each team, etc.)?
A. We may slightly change some things such as the number of stars needed but, all in all, it will be similar to previous seasons. The 7v7 format won’t change even though the drafting spread may be extended.
4. What do you plan to do with the torpedo soup?
A. This problem is about to be resolved. We may change torpedo detection range or some other characteristics. However, this is not the only solution we’re considering and this is not the only time we’ll have the opportunity to discuss which solution we decide to implement. Next week, we’ll have a provisional answer to share with you on this matter.
5. Will WoWs veterans receive a similar offer as WoT players?
A. It’s only an experiment for now and it will only be kept if it proves to be successful. Several players are complaining that inexperienced players can immediately buy tier 10 ships and ruin games. There are only a few hundreds players who received this bonus and not all of them used it. However, there are complaints about this and it’s unlikely we’ll give such a large bonus to players anymore. Still, we will look at the statistics we’re collecting and depending on the results, we may give a bonus to WoWs players and experienced players from other projects depending, for example, on how long they have been playing the game or how “skilled” they are. We will collect and analyse data during a few weeks still and take a decision when patch 0.5.5. is released.
6. What branch and nation will be released next?
A. As I said before, next branch will be German BB’s.
7. In you opinion, what are the best and worst premium and standard ships in the game?
A. Premium ships
Actually, it’s hard to say. There are certain ships that have a gameplay easily enjoyable such as Tirpitz, Kutuzov or Imperator. On the other hand, there are less easily enjoyable ships that are harder to play with such as Atlanta and Ishizuchi. The premiums that are considered overpowered have unique gameplay options which, at this moment, allows them to win battle more easily. I don’t think there are other ships like the Imperator. Warspite had a good run during the 3rd season (tier 5-7) since she rarely met CV’s and she really shines in such cases. On the other hand, if she must fight against CV’s, since her AA isn’t as great as other ships of her tier, her effectiveness decreases.
Standard ships
Regarding underpowered ships, I would say low tier Russian DD’s since their gameplay is rather difficult to grasp at the moment. That is why they’ll receive slight buffs to their torpedoes in the next updates. I don’t like to play Myoki at all and Karlsruhe is a bad ship in my opinion. But this is all subjective and doesn’t necessarily represent our statistics.
8. What do you think of the Atlanta? In my opinion, her effective range is around 8km since it’s really hard to hit anything other than BB’s at 10km and more.
A. It’s a very unique cruiser that has a lot of firepower at close range but is somewhat lacking at longer range. The biggest problem she has is her turret survivability. But this problem is not only affecting Atlanta, but every other ship. We’re in the process of changing this issue, but I can’t tell you what specific changes we’re planning to make.
9. When can we expect tier 5-8 maps?
A. In the next update, we will release two new maps. One of them may be available to tier 5-8 ships. We’ll also release a new variant of North. We like to experiment on that map, so there’s already standard North, Winter North and there will be another one, which should be quite different from the other two. In addition to all of that, we will make slight balance changes to several other maps.
10. Can we expect changes regarding daily missions?
A. We don’t plan to change mission rewards. Regarding mission tasks, we need to analyse our data and discuss the matter, but it’s possible we may add something interesting.
11. Are you happy with the statistics regarding fire damage?
A. Overall, we’re happy with the situation, since damage done to BB’s is mostly inflicted by shells and not fires. Thus, we don’t think the situation regarding fires is terrible. We’ll still examine our data and if we find something unusual, we’ll make some changes such as decreasing fire duration or fire chance.
12. Would you consider making the game mod free?
A. No, since we believe mods are an extension to the game. That’s why we’ve created the game architecture as such as to allow players to easily create mods. The files available to be modded are not critical for the game to run properly. Thus, we have no plans to make the game mod free.
13. Did the radar help counter the torpedo soup (or walls, whatever you prefer)?
A. Hard to say, since there aren’t a lot of radar equipped ships at high tiers yet. However, radar wasn’t meant to be the sole solution to the torpedo soup problem. We still need to solve it from a different standpoint, and that is exactly what we plan to do in the next update, by changing certain elements little by little. You will know next week what we concretely plan to do regarding this matter.
14. When can we expect the next Arpeggio missions?
A. I can’t really tell when they will be released. We have to model the new ships first and since our priority is to release new standard tech-tree ships and we’re currently working on German BB’s, new Arpeggio ships aren’t expected to be available soon.
15. What are you plans regarding personal offers?
A. We’ve already received feedback from the first wave of personal offers and we’re now improving them and testing new offers (which are available to different people) that give a -25% price reduction on various things. It’s hard to say if these offers get a lot of interest, but we’ll see how it goes, and it’s quite likely there will be new offers available at the end of April. For instance, in patch 0.5.5., there will be several important improvements added to this feature and thus we’ll be able to increase the number of players receiving offers.
16. When can we expect Saipan and what will be the requirements?
A. The requirements will be to have fought 20 battles in CV’s, some of which at tier 5. We made the decision not to base the requirements on kills because we wanted the ship to be available even for less experienced players who are learning how to play CV’s. We believe 20 battles are enough to know the basics of CV gameplay. The main limitation will be the cost – 7500 doubloons. The ship will be available through personal offers in mid/late April.
17. Do you plan to buff Mogami’s and Myoko’s 155mm and 203mm guns?
A. Unfortunately I’m not the right person you should ask this question to. It’s not that I don’t want to answer, I simply don’t have the answer.
18. Do you plan to release an event similar to Project R?
A. If we were to do it again, it wouldn’t be in the same form as it was, that is for sure. We would need to change the aspects that didn’t work. It wasn’t a complete success, so, we may do it again but I can’t precisely say when that’d be. First, we still need to fix other aspects of the game. What I can say is that we liked the general concept of the event, with the exception of certain details, but it’s unlikely a similar event will be held in the near future.
19. Do you plan to nerf smoke screens?
A. No. We think this feature is balanced for the time being. It has already considerably been nerfed since beta and it currently doesn’t last too long. Moreover, they are an inherent tool for certain ships tactics. Even if they can be effective in team battles, we do not think they are overpowered.
20. Do you plan to improve Coop mode play and give players taking part in this mode better rewards?
A. We consider Coop mode more or less as a side activity. However, there’s about 30% of players mainly fighting in coop battles. It’s a good way to get familiar with the game and since it’s so popular, we will develop it further. However, we don’t want to rush it, we have several theories on how to improve it we need to test. For now, I can assure you there will be a PvE mode but coop battles aren’t the only aspect of the game we’re currently working on. We will soon focus on developing PvE mode.
