Update 0.9

Release Version:

0.9.0

Distributed:

April 12th 2019 (PS4)

April 16th 2019 (Xbox)

Commanders

Commanders receive the first big update in the form of Battle Inspirations. What that means is now your commanders can have up to three base traits due to this system. Those base traits will come from other commanders which you have in your roster. But let's start a the beginning. To unlock Battle Inspirations, first your commander needs to reach rank 7, at which point he receives his first Inspirations slot. Second slot becomes available at rank 11. As you might remember, both of these are promotion ranks. Inspirations essentially copy the base traits without any penalties and their particular stats are dependent on the base traits' levels. It means that a rank 16 commander will "inspire" significantly stronger than a rank 1 commander.

Other things to consider when playing with Inspirations:

• Any commander can be an inspirator for an arbitrary number of commanders, there is no limit.
• Two commanders can be inspiring each other.
• There is no difference between the two inspiration slots and the order in which inspirators are assigned.
• An inspirator can only be placed in one inspiration slot of any commander, not both.

When you accumulate a significant roster of commanders you will have several inspirations to choose from, and we encourage any experiments with such combinations, however there is a penalty for changing Inspirations in already filled Inspiration slots, so to change a particular Inspiration a commander needs to finish 7 battles with a new one or skip the adoption process by using 3000 Commander XP per battle, making an instant Inspiration switch cost 21 000 Commander XP.

Legendary Ranks (Temporary) Removal

As the heading suggests, legendary ranks have been removed for now. Fear not, as they will reappear soon, probably with the next update, but we've moved them away from being the "top ranks", instead they will become a separate entity, that you can improve independently from the main Commander ranks. This also means that maximum rank for a Commander is 16. We also introduce limitations to the max Skill level in regards to the ship tier. Tier I-II ships will allow for level 3 skills, tier III limits skills to level 4, after that all of the Commander skills become active on the ship, in case they are. This should restrict the "seal clubbing" tendencies a little, although we do not expect much of it in the first several months after the game is released. Please note, that since Rank 16 is now the highest one, and mastery for each skill goes up to level 3 instead of 4.

New Commanders

We're finally populating all of the available national rosters with 7 commanders each. Moreover we've assigned archetypes to each commander, and since we don't have official titles yet, here's the list of archetype nomenclature:

• Jack of all trades
• DD Assassin
• DD Subjugator
• DD Vexer
• CA/CL Tormentor
• CA/CL Exterminator
• BB Ranger
• BB Brawler

We'll leave the task of connecting the dots (should you wish to) to you, so have fun.

These Commanders will be available on launch:

USA

• William Halsey
• William Sims
• Norman Scott
• Arleigh Burke
• George Dewey
• Thomas Kincaid
• Willis Lee

Japan

• Isoroku Yamamoto
• Heihachiro Togo
• Raizo Tanaka
• Takeo Kurita
• Nobutake Kondo
• Gunichi Mikawa
• Takeo Takagi

U.K.

• Andrew Cunningham
• Philip Vian
• Bruce Fraser
• Charles Madden
• William Tennant
• John Jellicoe
• Reginald Tyrwhitt
  

USSR

• Anton Gurin (together with Gremyashchy)
  

Poland

• Jerzy Świrski (Together with Blyskawica)
  

New Skills

Also we have a shipload of new Commander Skills and Commander Base Traits. Those can be checked out in game. Please note, that skills have been moved around to better connect commanders with their proposed archetypes.

New Battle Locations

5 new maps have been added to the game:

• Haven, battle tiers IV-VII
• Estuary, battle tiers IV-VII
• Neighbors, battle tiers IV-VII
• Shards, battle tiers V-VII
• Trident, battle tiers V-VII

All of these maps are of the biggest available size, similar to that of Fault Line or North.

Balance changes

Most of the changes in this update relate to the new Brits and they go hand in hand with your comments on the gaming experience.

Vanguard

Vanguard was obviously rough, so please welcome her new iteration, one that's much closer to her tier rivals in power:

• Citadel was lowered
• Main battery precision has been increased by about 25%
• Main battery reload time has been decreased from 30 seconds to 25
• Main battery turret 180 degree traverse time has been reduced from 72s to 36s

Gremyashchy

Gremyashchy, on the other hand, showed a little too much combat potential, keyword being "a little", that's why she receives a subtle decrease to her main battery reload time as well as penetration values;

• Main Battery reload time up to 5.3s from 5.0s
• Penetration values for AP shells were decreased by about 3%

Orion

Orion had a little extra pep in her step and gets several corrections as well:

• Max damage of main battery HE shells reduced from 5900 to 4700
• Main battery precision decreased by approximately 17%

Iron Duke

Iron Duke while demonstrating a bit of the same symptoms that Orion did, wasn't affecting the outcomes that much, and accordingly receives less of a moderation:

• Max damage of main battery HE shells reduced from 5900 to 5000

Farragut

The light nerfing spree continues with fan-favorite Farragut:

• Main battery reload time increased from 4.0s to 4.3s

Benson

Same goes for Benson:

• Main battery reload time increased from 3.34s to 3.5s

Phoenix

To frame the balance changes in a positive light, let's take a look at Phoenix, stock hull of which receives a couple of buffs, since we only found her to be underperforming in her stock configuration, with fully upgraded ship being respectable in her winrate and other stats:

• Main battery reload time for base ship reduced from 8.5s to 8.0s
• Increased max HP for base hull from 21 300 to 22 300

Miscellaneous Changes

• Tier I ships can no longer be sold.
• Secondary armament turned off for all tier I ships. This had close to no bearing on the battle results or economics, yet worked to confuse some of the players and seeing how Tier I is a stepping stone we decided to remove the weapons.
• When looking at your credits and doubloons, you can now see see your gains from playing the game and from shopping at the store separately.
• Camouflages no longer have economic bonuses, shifting the burden of extra monetary and experience gains towards boosters. Premium ships have economic built-in.
• Combat bonuses for premium camouflages are fixed at -4.5% detectability range and +4.5% dispersion of incoming shells. Consumable camos separate into 4 kinds: 1 stat at 4.5%, other stat at 4.5%, both stats at 3%, both stats at 4.5%.

Containers

The transport ship has arrived to the port and with it did the containers! Containers can be awarded for completing combat missions as well as purchased from the in-game store. There are all kinds of things that you can find inside containers, including boosters, camouflages, commander items, and possibly more in the future. To open a container simply navigate to the eponymous menu item in the Headquarters and once you see the transport ship hold down the A button on Xbox or X button on PlayStation to open a single container. Once you open a container, you can see its contents in detail and browse between them. There are various rewards that can be found in containers, at launch they are boosters, camouflage, commanders, credits and doubloons. Containers themselves are divided into two categories - commander packs and regular containers, as the names suggest, first type is guaranteed to have a commander, while the second one will have currencies or boosters/camouflages.

Please note, that duplicate commanders are automatically converted into commander XP. If the received commander is ranked higher than your existing one, the commander you have, gains that rank while the rank 1 commander turns into Commander XP.

Improvements, Bug Fixes, Miscellaneous

UI Improvements

• We've had a partial overhaul done to our interface and the biggest change is, of course, the fonts. You will notice that the new fonts change the overall atmosphere to more naval, giving it a militaristic overtone. Let us know what you think! We have also renamed several items in the menus: "Main Menu" became "Headquarters", "Ship Management" became "Upgrades and Loadout", "Progress" became "Upgrades", "Battle" turned into "Play" while "Tech Tree" is now "Ships". Another noticeable change happened in the battle UI, rudder markers have been brought down to the ship mockup.
• "Select commander" tab received various improvements and shows more information now.
• "New" marker is now in place of the WG logo denoting the game entities that have become available.
• Battle result screen now shows XP placement within the team, accessible by RB on Xbox or R1 on PS.
• You can also access the results of battles played within the current gaming session (until you leave the game).
• Improved the ship images in the tech tree.
• Animated the focus frame for menu items.
  

Battle UI/HUD Improvements

• Damage counter is now accordingly labeled.
• Ship markers are now a little lower in relation to the previous position and have smoother movement.
• Ship mock-up on in the bottom center is a little smaller now.
• Target lock animation became a little bit more obvious.
• Added new hints to the start of battles.
• Added tips to the battle loading screens.
• Friendly divisions are marked as such (the ones you're not a part of).
• Battle countdown timer combined with the progress timer.
• Steering indication moved down to the compass.
• Torpedo prediction indicator has a dashed line, as well as distance and time to the target.
• The "Gun lock" feature is renamed to "Overview Camera", the classic "Gun Lock" is available for presets 3 and 4 on the left stick press.
• Bonus XP badge is reworked.

Graphics improvements:

• Kagero has been fully remodeled.
• Implemented temporal anti-aliasing (reduced aliasing artifacts and small details jittering) on Xbox One X and both PlayStation systems.
• HDR enabled on Xbox One X and both PlayStation systems.
• True FullHD resolution enabled (was 972P before) on Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 (non-Pro) systems.
• Improved trees' interaction with lighting (more consistent and voluminous lighting).
  

Miscellaneous Changes

• Cosmetic flags were added, but only in a limited capability.
• Collision prevention system can now be turned off in the settings menu.
• Tech-Tree graphics have been improved.
• Minor adjustments to existing spawn points.
• Store items and their images load up quicker.
• Added Wargaming account deletion option in settings menu. This will initialize the deletion of your Wargaming account and unlink it from you platform account in the process.
• Divisions with more that 1 tier difference in their compositions can no longer go to battle.
• Account leveling received additional commander item rewards, premium time and containers.
• Added colorblind modes for players with following conditions: Deuteranopia, Protanopia, Tritanopia. Amount of color correction can be set with a slider.