WoWS ST, changes to the commander skills system

Please note that all information in the development blog is preliminary and subject to change during testing. Any showcased features may or may not end up on the main server.

In the near future, there will be а ST of the updated commander skills system. At the moment, we plan to update the skills in 0.9.11. We will conduct several stages of testing and will closely monitor your feedback.

In summary:

• New skills were added and some of the old ones were changed
• Now each class will have a separate section with unique skills
• Maximum skill points number increased from 19 to 21
• New way to get elite commander experience: dismiss unused commanders
• The amount of experience required to retrain a commander to another researchable ship reduced by half.

If and when the changes come to the live server, everyone will have an opportunity to reset their commanders’ skills for free. Details will be announced at a later date.

Skills already existing in the game will be adapted to the new system in as comfortable a way as possible, taking all changes into account. Thus, players will not have to necessarily redistribute all their commanders’ skills, as they will already be trained for the skills most similar to the ones they were trained for in the old system.

Main changes

The commander skills system in its current form has existed for a long time—the last time major changes to the system were made was a few years ago, in 0.6.0. Since then, new mechanics and many ships with unique gameplay styles have been added to the game. Taking into account these and many other factors, we decided to update the skills system to better match the current realities of World of Warships.

Many skills in the game are not suitable for certain classes and individual ships, which greatly limits the variability of builds. In such conditions, there were not as many effective ways to distribute skills as we wanted. These change will help players not only to allocate skills to match their playstyle, but also to try new tactics.

In the new system, each commander will have an opportunity to distribute skills for each class separately, each in a specialized section. We have also improved the interface and functionality of the system: for example, you can now assign a commander to different classes without having to redistribute skills.

We have also significantly changed and reshuffled the skills themselves, added new ones, and removed some of the old ones. The skills have been changed so that in each row there is a choice between several effective options, instead of one ultimate skill.

Have you always wanted to pick just a few more skills? Now, as skills are becoming more specialized and their total number increasing, the maximum number of commander skill points is also being increased from 19 to 21.

The distribution of skills by categories will become more logical, which will help to match the skills to the chosen style of play.

There will also be a new way to get elite commander experience in the game. Players will be able to transform part of a commander’s experience into elite experience when dismissing him:

• 25% of experience earned at the cost of 1 experience for 10 credits.
• 50% of experience earned at the cost of 150 experience per 1 doubloon.

Thus, you can demobilize unused commanders, and spend the gained elite experience on training, redistributing skills, or retraining the commanders you need.

Details about the changes

• Commanders will still have a specialization for a particular ship.
• Only one skill set corresponding to a class of ship is active at one time.
• The skills for each class are distributed independently from each other. For example, a commander with 10 skill points can distribute 10 points in the section of destroyers and 10 points for battleships.
• The basics of skills distribution will not change:
  • each section will have 4 rows of skills;
  • to access the next row you have to learn a skill from the previous one;
  • the cost of learning skills increases with each row: the skill on the first row costs one point, the second two points, etc.;
• The cost and number of skills for recruited commanders will change so that, if necessary, the player will be able to recruit a commander with a large number of skill points:
  • commander without skills is hired for free.
  • commander with 6 skill points is available for 900,000 credits.
  • commander with 10 skill points is available for 1,750 doubloons.
• To redistribute the skills, as before, elite commander experience or doubloons will be required. Each skill section is redistributed separately.
• The cost of redistribution for a section with a commander with 21 skill points will be 525 doubloons or 500,000 elite commander experience. For 19 skill points, the cost remains unchanged.
• A commander with no specialization for a specific ship cannot be assigned to it without retraining. This rule is not applied to premium or special ships.
• You can go into battle on a ship without a commander. In this case, commander experience will not be credited to the account.
• The amount of experience required to retrain a commander to another researchable ship will be reduced by half. Skills will not work until the commander completes retraining.
• The cost of commander retraining changes:
  • Since redistribution of commander skills will be required much less often, the cost of retraining in doubloons will increase from 500 to 750 doubloons.

The list of updated skills is available here: Commanders’ skills

Please note that skills and their names are preliminary and subject to change during testing.

Source: WoWS Devblog