Update 0.8.9

Developer Bulletin Developer Diaries News article

Update 0.8.9: Italian Cruisers

Update 0.8.9 kicks off a cycle of updates dedicated to Italy! Let’s talk about what it’s bringing with it.

Italian Tier V–VIII cruisers in Early Access; the return of some familiar Halloween Operations; a new temporary game mode—Raid for the Filth—with three teams in each battle; a new Season of Clan Battles; and much more!

Italian Cruisers

Italian Tier V–VIII cruisers are set to arrive in Early Access. How does the new branch stand out?

• Excellent maneuverability
• Starting from Tier VI, cruisers are equipped with powerful 203 mm guns
• Semi-armor-piercing (SAP) shells that combine the features of both AP and HE shells
• The Exhaust Smoke Generator consumable that can conceal a ship in smoke without it having to reduce speed

Complete Directives to earn "Italian Cruisers" containers which have a certain chance of dropping a combat mission that unlocks Early Access to one of the Italian cruisers: V Raimondo Montecuccoli, VI Trento, VII Zara, or VIII Amalfi. Two more containers will be available via Daily Shipments.

Directives

Completing missions and Directives will bring you signals, expendable camouflages, Elite Commander XP, credits, Free XP, Coal, Italian Cruisers containers, and a new temporary resource—Italian Tokens.

The new game event tasks you with completing 42 missions across four Directives. You can start progressing in the next Directive only once you've completed six missions from the previous one. To obtain the final award, you have to complete eight missions of the fourth Directive.

Directives are available for players with open access to combat missions in their Service Record. Novice players will have to play 70 battles in any accessible battle mode in order to unlock them.

Italian Tokens

A new tab dedicated to the Italian cruisers has been added to the Armory.

Exchange Italian Tokens for "Patria e Onore" random bundles with valuable rewards. One of the 22 bundles contains the main reward—Italian cruiser V Genova.

Other rewards

• Regia Marina expendable camouflages
• Credits
• Days of Premium Account
• Signals
• Italian Cruisers containers
• "Grigio-azzurro chiaro" permanent camouflages for cruisers V Raimondo Montecuccoli, VI Trento, VII Zara, and VIII Amalfi

Italian Tokens will be available throughout Update 0.8.9 only. After Update 0.8.10 goes live, they will only be obtainable from Italian Cruisers Premium containers. With the release of Update 0.8.11, all Italian Tokens will be converted into credits at a rate of 1:4,500.

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Halloween

Operations Saving Transylvania and Sunray in the Darkness

In the dark night that bridges October 31 and November 1, hordes of lurking evil creatures sliver out of their shelters and creep all over the earth, set on conquering new lands! Join forces with other players to save Transylvania, and defend the waters of the Silver Spear Archipelago—fight back the forces of darkness in these frighteningly familiar Operations! This year, you'll be able to try your hand in the Operations as part of a Division, not only at Normal and Hard difficulty settings, but also at the new Super Hard difficulty. The first completion of a Super Hard Operation with three stars or more will bring you Halloween 2018 Premium containers. These can include expendable camouflages, doubloons, Free XP, and have a certain chance of dropping one of the permanent Halloween-themed camos from the previous years.

For Operation "Saving Transylvania," players will have access to the following ships, manned by Commanders with 19 skill points:

• Destroyer III Blade with Commander Abraham V. Hellsinger
• Battleship III Jackal with Commander Henry J. Hide
• Cruiser III Igor with Commander Victor F. Einstein

In Operation "Sunray in the Darkness," players will get the following ships, manned by Commanders with 19 skill points:

• Destroyer VIII Urashima with Commander Mina Hurray
• Cruiser VIII Svyatozar with Commander Ivan K. Ulibin
• Battleship VIII Magnu-S with Commander Klaus V. Teslau

Operations become available only after unlocking access to them in the Service Record. Novice players can unlock access to Operations by playing 30 battles in any accessible battle mode.

Read more >>>

Raid for the Filth

Welcome to a new game mode called Raid for the Filth!

The new mode will be available from October 31 till November 28.

In the new mode, three teams with three players in each fight against one another, as well as a horde of dark forces controlled by AI. Your primary task is to collect a special resource called “Filth.” A dedicated section of the Armory will let you exchange Filth for various rewards, including camouflages styled as monster ships, and a new type of permanent camouflage for Tier VIII–X ships.

More details about the new mode and its rewards will follow in a separate article. Stay tuned for news on our website!

Clan Battles

The seventh season of Clan Battles, codenamed "Crash Zone Alpha," will be held between October 23 and December 9 in an "8 vs. 8" format.

More details about the rules of the Season and its rewards will follow in a separate article on our website.

Changes to the Spotting and Detectability System

After listening to the numerous requests of our players, we’ve introduced some changes to the spotting and detectability system.

Now, the penalty to a ship’s detectability after firing a shot will be reset 2 seconds after she leaves an enemy ship's line of sight (e.g. by hiding behind an island).

We've also added a period of guaranteed acquisition: if a ship is detected by an opponent, it will remain visible to the enemy for at least 2 seconds. This change will eliminate those cases when an enemy ship "flickers" at the edge of the line of sight—i.e. appearing and disappearing from the map in rapid succession.

As a result, if your ship leaves an opponent's line of sight 1 second after you were detected, you'll continue to be visible to the enemy ship for a further 1 second. However, if your ship was visible to the enemy ship for 2 seconds before leaving the enemy ship's line of sight, you'll disappear from the enemy's view immediately.

Game Balance Changes

European Tier VII destroyer Błyskawica

• Main battery reload time has been reduced from 6.5 to 6 seconds

VII Błyskawica was one of the first Premium ships to appear in World of Warships. Since her release, the game has changed a lot, and there are new ships now that are played in a similar style. The accelerated reload time of her main battery will increase the damage she can deal and strengthen the role of the destroyer in the current meta.

Japanese Tier IV aircraft carrier Hōshō:

• New Type 91 mod. 0 torpedoes have been installed instead of the previous Type 91 mod. 1. The new torpedoes have a speed of 40 knots instead of 50 knots
• The speed of torpedo bombers returning to the carrier has been reduced by 40%

Due to the high cruising speed and returning speed of torpedo bombers, experienced players were able to safely rely on the use of torpedo bombers only. Both changes listed above will increase the amount of damage taken by torpedo bombers. Now, the climb after an attack will be slower, and to effectively attack, torpedo bombers will also have to fly closer to their targets. The new speed will reduce the effectiveness of torpedo bombers against destroyers, giving them an opportunity to maneuver and evade.

Having powerful torpedo bombers is one of the main features of Japanese aircraft carriers. With these changes, we plan to balance the performance of Tier IV carriers, but will also continue to monitor the situation and, if necessary, make further changes.

French Tier II destroyer Enseigne Gabolde

• Torpedo speed has been reduced from 57 to 52 knots
• Main battery reload time has been increased from 4.8 to 5.2 seconds

French Tier III destroyer Fusilier

• Torpedo speed has been reduced from 57 to 52 knots
• Main battery reload time has been increased from 6 to 6.6 seconds

French Tier IV destroyer Bourrasque

• Main battery reload time has been increased from 6 to 6.6 seconds

Unlike their higher-tier counterparts, these low-tier French destroyers don’t yet have the explicit gameplay of gunboats, and therefore their damage output is roughly divided equally between their torpedoes and main battery.

The proposed changes are designed to reduce the total damage these ships deal without changing the ratio of damage dealt by torpedoes and the main battery. Moreover, the torpedoes carried by II Enseigne Gabolde and III Fusilier were previously too fast for these tiers, taking their range into account.

Soviet Tier VIII battleship Vladivostok

• Sigma parameter has been changed from 1.7 to 1.6

The battleship's main battery had excessive firing accuracy. By changing this parameter, we are reducing her firing accuracy at all ranges of combat, without changing the specific accuracy settings of Soviet battleships.

Soviet Tier X battleship Kremlin

• For AP shells, we’ve reduced the maximum damage from 15,500 to 14,500, and changed some other related parameters
• For HE shells, we’ve reduced the maximum damage (from 6,600 to 6,500), the chances of causing fire (from 48% to 45%), and some other related parameters

The efficiency of X Kremlin was higher than that of other battleships at Tier X. To balance the ship, and at the same time have minimal impact on the defining features of the battleship, we’ve changed the characteristics of her shells. Along with the above changes, we’ve slightly changed the armor penetration and ballistics.

Technical Improvements

Changes to the audio

In Update 0.8.8, we rolled out a massive update to the audio component of the game. Unfortunately, it was only after the Update went out that we came across certain bugs. Most of them were fixed with the release of Update 0.8.8.1, but we are continuing to work on the game audio in Update 0.8.9.

• The fire alarm siren that goes off when a ship is on fire will now be played back only if the ship has at least three zones afflicted by fire.
• Reduced the playback volume of the sound of forts firing in Operation "Narai."
• Reconfigured the loudness of gunfire for main and secondary batteries, AA guns, and torpedo launchers for friendly and hostile ships.
• Fixed an issue which disabled the gunfire sounds of the main and secondary batteries, AA guns, and torpedo launchers on ships mounted with Post-Apocalyptic camouflages.
• Fixed an issue which disabled the playback of the sound notifying a player that the main battery has been reloaded on ships mounted with a Space camouflage.
• Fixed some glitches which, once Space or Halloween-themed camouflages were mounted, disabled the playback of aircraft engine sounds after activating the Spotting Aircraft/Fighter consumables; the playback of fire alarm sounds; and the engine sounds for aircraft carriers.
• Fixed an issue which prevented the playback of special voiceovers for certain Commanders.
• Fixed an issue which caused a ship's horn on certain ships to malfunction after mounting a permanent camouflage.
• Fixed an issue which sometimes unexpectedly disabled weather-related sounds on certain maps.
• Fixed other minor issues affecting the playback of sounds.

Special ships

A new group of ships—special ships—has been added, uniting the following categories:

• Rental ships
• Event ships
• Early Access ships
• Non-researchable ships without increased profitability

The new group will appear in the filtering criteria of the ships' carousel in the Port, so as to help players distinguish between Premium ships with increased profitability and other types of non-researchable ships.

Apart from that, we’ve updated the descriptions for all groups of ships in the Modules section.

Camouflage display in battle

Previously, with the display of special camouflages in the Port disabled, ships in battle would be displayed without any camouflage. This could lead to a player believing that an allied or a hostile ship didn't have any combat bonuses applied from a camouflage. In Update 0.8.9, we've resolved this issue. Now, if a player disables the display of special camouflages, in battle they will see the permanent camouflage of a ship instead, and if that’s not available—the Type 5 expendable camouflage.

Please note: players that have disabled the display of special camouflages will still not be able to mount them on their ships.

Spectator mode

To make it more convenient to hold tournaments and other activities, the Training Room will now offer an option to enter battles in Spectator mode, i.e. without a ship.

Read more >>>

New content

We've added a "Battle of Leyte Gulf" commemorative flag and the "Type 21" and "MS-21" expendable camouflages with the following characteristics:

• −3% to the ship's detectability range by sea
• +4% to the dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
• +100% XP per battle
• +20% credits per battle

More info on how to obtain them will be available later. Stay tuned for news on combat missions on our website!

The following ships have been added for testing by developers, supertesters, and community contributors: Italian cruiser VII Gorizia and German cruiser VIII Mainz.

Other improvements and fixes

• The Naval Base Port is now available to all players.
• Coach screens have been replaced with pop-up hints for upgrades, signals, camouflages, and flags.
• We’ve enhanced the system for the rendering of trees.
• Camouflages will now be divided into 2 categories in the Port: permanent and expendable.
• A player's progress in the Service Record will no longer be displayed in post-battle statistics.
• We've changed the settings of the scale reflecting the maneuverability characteristics of a ship in the Port to ensure that ships with a high maximum speed are displayed correctly. This resulted in a minor change in a ship's maneuverability value compared to the previous Update. The ship's characteristics, however, have not changed.
• Players that don't have Warships Premium Account will be able to get it via the "Credits and XP" tab of the post-battle statistics screen.
• The Clan Base loading time has been reduced.
• The restriction on the use of the "Attention to Sector" command has now been lifted in the Training Room, in Clan Battles, and during Operations pursued by a Division at full strength.
• We’ve fixed the incorrect placement of a pop-up hint about a ship's armor in the Port.
• Fixed an issue which sometimes caused the filtering criteria for Commanders in the ships carousel to be reset after logging back in to the game.