Ranked Battles
Prepare yourself to Ranked battles before Season 5 start:
- Symmetrical matchmaker: every ship of a team will be strictly mirrored by her type and tier on the opposing team to assure equal conditions for every player.
- Mono-tier battles: Tier VI ships only in League 4; Tier VIII ships only within Leagues 3 to 1.
- 23 Ranks: more safe ranks in the beginning compare to the previous season to make your start more comfortable.
- New map list:
- Mountain Range, Neighbors and Trident maps were added for more diversity;
- Tears of the Desert and Ocean were removed following previous season participants feedback;
- Strait was removed due to insufficient balance for this mode;
- Land of Fire and Shatter were removed due to being re-worked;
Teamplay
For more fair calculations of XP and Credits earned in battle, the following factors are now taken into account:
- Spotting enemy ships and squadrons
- Damage caused by allies to the enemy spotted by you
- Potential damage
The overall logic of granting Credits and XP per battle was reworked to include the above changes. Consequently, if a player carries out useful actions (causing damage, fighting for control of key areas, supporting the allied team), their average rewards will not change compared to rewards earned in version 0.5.11.
However, players whose gameplay behaviour is mostly “one-way” (for example, battleship players that stay away from the heat of battle and try to only cause damage to the enemy rather than lead the attack in a certain direction, or destroyer players that focus on capturing key areas but do not do any recon) will be in a less advantageous position in terms of the in-game economy.
The changes above have been designed based on the analysis of real-word data received throughout versions 0.5.9 to 0.5.10. They should have a positive impact on the in-game economy and make the rewards more fair, especially for players who are supporting their team a lot.
Maps
Fight amidst the islands of the Northern sea located between Iceland and Scandinavia on Shards, our newest map for VII-IX Battle Tiers.
This grim location is decorated with rare settlements of fishermen and marine bases, aimed to support polar convoys. Be among the first to check it out and make sure you share your feedback with us!
Game Balance Changes
Try top-tier balance changes at the safe area:
- The armour thickness of regular Tier VIII-X battleships has been decreased. This change will allow penetration of the affected ships in the forward section with large-calibre AP shells. The previous armour thickness allowed Battleship players attack head-on in high tiers (or even attack while moving in reverse in some cases) by highly decreasing or even fully excluding the possibility of taking damage from AP shells. Those battleships also tended to ignore other ships on their teams. This caused participants in combat to become passive and enter engagements less logically, their game behaviour deviating from their intended roles. Now, battleships pose more significant threat to each other and will be able to deal more quick damage, especially in close combat. Battleships tanking is now more complicated and players need to pay more attention to how they position thier ships, instead of just pointing bow at the enemy. This affects only battleship vs battleship situation, and should also make the life of high-tier cruisers better, as they suffer a lot from battleship overpopulation.This is an experiment, so we encourage players to explore high-tier gameplay and share their thougts on this change.
- At the same time destroyers plating thickness has been decreased, too. This change will affect the performance of battleships auxiluary armament against the destroyers – their small caliber shells will deal more damage on hit.
- In order to equalise combat effectiveness of the Soviet destroyers Udaloi and Khabarovsk against their peers, the fire range of these ships has been decreased, whereas loading time has been increased. The change is needed because these destroyers cause too much frustration to play against as it requires extremely high skill to hit them at their maximum firing range, while they quite esasily deal deamage in return.
- Regular Tier VII-X cruisers are now able to equip Steering Gears Modification 3 in the 6th slot (-40% to rudder shift time and -80% to steering gears repair time). That change is aimed at increasing the insufficient survivability of high-tier cruisers and to motivate players to act more aggressively in battle.
Passive Player Behaviour in Battles
In previous versions, players who left the battle before their ships were destroyed received a penalty in the form of zero reward after the battle ended. To prevent passive behavior in battles, the same penalty will be applied to players who are inactive after they join the battle. The following passive behavior criteria are used:
- The ship never moved and did not cause any damage
- The player did not cause any damage and, for aircraft carriers, never launched aircraft squadrons
Let us know what do you think about it and other economics changes at forum feedback section.
Interface Changes
- Added an option to adjust the transparency of water on the Minimap
- Added five new reticles created by our players who participated in the corresponding contest
