Update 0.9.6

Revision as of 17:34, 7 July 2020

Developer Bulletin 0.9.6. Dev Blog - Balance changes
News Article

German Carriers ● Clan Battles: Loop ● Ranked Battles ● Changes to the Modules tab ● Audio Improvements ● Other Changes

German Carriers

German carriers IV Rhein, VI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval are entering Early Access! To obtain them, complete combat missions which have specific chances of being dropped from German Carriers containers.

Rewards from Daily Shipments and for completing Directives: German Carriers containers.

Rewards from containers: combat missions that unlock Early Access to German carriers IV Rhein, VI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval; the "Black, White, Red" expendable camouflage; and other desirable rewards.

German Tokens: you can get German Tokens for completing special chains of combat missions. In total, there are four chains with rewards such as German Tokens and the Iron Cross permanent camouflage for IV Rhein, VI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval.

Rewards available in exchange for Tokens in the Armory: the Iron Cross permanent camouflage for X Großer Kurfürst, X Z-52, X Hindenburg, and X Manfred von Richthofen; "Black, White, Red" expendable camouflage patterns; credits; and signals.

Features of the German carriers

• The aircraft have a high cruising speed, but somewhat small HP pool.
• Attack aircraft are equipped with a new type of ammunition—AP rockets. These are capable of inflicting heavy damage to enemy citadels. However, they may also ricochet or fail to penetrate armor when hitting a target at acute angles. When striking the thin armor of destroyers at 90-degree angles, they will often overpenetrate and deal 1/10 of the maximum damage.
• The torpedoes dropped by German aircraft are fast, but have a short range and cause moderate damage.
• German bombers carry armor-penetrating bombs. Squadrons fly at high altitudes, and an attacking flight immediately goes into a dive. As it is rather difficult to adjust the position of the target reticle during an attack, their bombs are most effective when dropped on slower targets.
• German carriers are armed with accurate long-range secondary guns.

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The Port of Hamburg has been updated.

Clan Battles: Loop

Format: 7 vs. 7 playing Tier VI ships
Rewards: up to 10,000 Steel and many additional rewards
Maps: Loop with a reduced combat area, Ring, Big Race, New Dawn, Trident, Neighbors, and Riposte

Ranked Battles

Format: 7 vs. 7 playing Tier VIII ships
Rewards: up to 4,800 Steel and many additional rewards
Maps: Greece, Northern Waters, Haven, Mountain Range, Trident, Loop, and Hotspot

Changes to the Port Modules tab

The Modules tab in the Port has been reworked. Configuring warships prior to battle was previously too difficult and inconvenient due to the large number of ships and their available enhancements. The process of outfitting a ship before entering battle is now clearer and will take less time.

• The tab has been renamed "Equipment."
• You can manage the upgrades, consumables, and modules of a ship in the same window, without having to switch between different tabs.
• The visual appearance of the Modules tree has been improved. We've updated the visuals for the module statuses:

• Not researched
• Not purchased
• Available for mounting
• Mounted

• You can mount modules with a single click. Modules can be researched and purchased with the click of a button, similar to camouflages, signals, and flags.
• You can view any ships you haven't yet purchased in the new "Ship Preview" mode. To do so, click on the icon depicting a camera in the Modules block of the Equipment tab, or on the button in the ship parameters section of the Tech Tree.
• The dependencies between modules of different types have been removed, which has simplified the research process. Modules of different types are now intercompatible.
• Links between elements of the Modules tree are highlighted if the next module or ship is available to research.
• Each aircraft carrier squadron is displayed in a separate block with its specific armament and equipment.
• Pop-up windows for mounting and replacing upgrades no longer display integral characteristics.

Audio Improvements

In Update 0.9.6, we've updated the Wwise audio subsystem version and sound parameters.

List of changes

• Improved sound quality for all settings.
• Improved sound quality for multi-channel sound systems (5.1; 7.1; and others).
• Updated sounds for ship engines. Sounds are divided into two types—steam turbine and diesel, each with its own distinctive tone.
• Updated sounds for aircraft engines.
• Updated ambient sounds with the Ultra sound quality setting selected.
• The SFX volume slider has been removed from the audio settings. Previously, the slider was used to control all non-musical in-game sounds, with the exception of voice messages. Thus it duplicated the other sliders located in the audio settings tab on the right-hand side of the screen.
• A new "Damage audio volume" slider has been added. This is used to control the sound of shells' interaction with all surfaces and ships, and the effects they cause.
• Added an option to adjust the volume of the horn that sounds when launching the game. It can be adjusted with the "Music in the Port" slider.

New sound effects

• When aircraft fly near the camera and when a squadron approaches a ship.
• When turning the camera, and removing fires and flooding in the Binocular view.

• With the Ultra sound setting enabled, new sound effects will be heard when selecting 1/2 and 1/4 speeds; reaching speed marks; and when shifting gears to reverse thrust while moving forward at full speed, and vice versa.
• Added new sound effects for hits that depend on the type (ricochet, penetration, over-penetration) and degree of damage caused or received.
• After the release of Update 0.9.6, you may need to set the sound parameters in the Game Settings. We’ll talk about how to best configure them in a dedicated article.

Low-Tier Matchmaker Changes

When playing low-tier ships (Tiers I through V) in Random Battles, teams often entered battle with an incomplete roster. Such a situation could occur due to the fact that most of the activity in our game take place at higher tiers. Now, if the waiting time spent by the first player in the queue exceeds 3 minutes, the remaining places in the teams will be occupied by bots.

• In Tier I–IV battles, bots are equal in strength to the bots in Co-op Battles.
• In Tier V battles, bots have received improved AI and fight at the skill level of those in Operations.

Matchmaker Changes for Newcomers

• The number of battles a player needs to fight in order to be placed in the general queue for Random Battles has been increased from 69 to 200. Thus a new player will gain more game experience before moving on to general Random Battles. If any newcomers decide they are ready to fight with experienced players, they will be able to enter battle playing Tier V ships:

• A player who has played 200 battles or less and enters battle playing Tier I–IV ships will be placed in the queue for newcomers only.
• A player who has played 200 battles or less and enters battle playing a ship of Tier V or above will be placed in the general queue.
• Players who have played more than 200 battles will always be placed in the general queue.

• If the waiting time spent by the first player in the queue exceeds 3 minutes, battles are possible where there is only one live player mirrored by a bot. In this case, the rest of the player’s team will be filled out with bots, and the opposing team will also be filled with bots, mirroring the player’s team in terms of ship tiers and types.

Matchmaker Changes in Low-Tier Random Battles

• In Tier I–V Random Battles, bots will be added until complete teams are formed if the waiting time spent by the first player in the queue exceeds 3 minutes. A battle will only be matched if the general queue contains at least one pair of players playing ships of the same tier.
• If players have ships of different types, then after 3 minutes of waiting in the queue, they will be mirrored by bot ships of the same types and tiers, and the teams will be complemented with bots within the limits for ship types and tiers for this particular battle tier. It means each team will have the same number of bots.
• A visual notification about the maximum waiting time and possibility of matching bots to the battle has been added to the battle loading screen.

Game Balance Changes

In Update 0.9.6, we've made changes to the parameters of certain ships based on our analysis of their battle efficiency and feedback from players. Such changes were required in order to carefully adjust the balance of selected warships. Further changes may follow, should they be required, in future updates. List of changes:

Damage from the armor-penetrating bombs

Damage from the armor-penetrating bombs of carrier aircraft has been reduced by an average of 17%: Aircraft Carrier/Aircraft Before Now IV Hōshō 3,000 2,500 VI Ryūjō: standard bombers 5,500 4,600 VI Ryūjō: researchable bombers VIII Shōkaku: standard bombers 6,100 5,100 VIII Shōkaku: researchable bombers 7,600 6,200 X Hakuryū: researchable and standard bombers 8,200 6,800 VIII Enterprise 5,900 4,900 VIII Graf Zeppelin, VIII Graf Zeppelin B 7,000 5,800

AP bombs require greater player skill than HE bombs, but when correctly used, their effectiveness is higher. The revamped aircraft carriers are a relatively young ship type, and most players have only recently learned how to use them effectively. Since the damage they caused became excessively high, we decided to systemically reduce the maximum damage dealt by AP bombs without reducing their armor penetration capabilities.

Tier VIII Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku

• Armor penetration of bombs dropped by researchable bombers increased by 8%.

Tier VIII German aircraft carriers Graf Zeppelin and Graf Zeppelin B

• Bomber aiming speed increased by 15%.

Tier V–X U.S. destroyers Nicholas, Farragut, Mahan, Benson, Fletcher, and Gearing

• The bonus to continuous AA damage provided by the Defensive AA Fire consumable increased from +50% to +75%.

Tier X Italian cruiser Venezia

• The angle value that is used as the starting point for checking an SAP shell hit for a ricochet reduced from 75 to 70 degrees.

  Main battery reload time increased from 20 to 20.5 s.

  Rudder-shift time increased from 11.6 to 12.6 s.

Engine Boost Modification 1 upgrade

• The bonus to the action time of the Engine Boost consumable reduced from +50% to +40%.

Turning Circle Radius Changes

For certain ships, there were discrepancies in the actual values of their turning circle radius and those indicated in the ship parameters sections.

Based on the degree of difference in these values, as well as on the current efficiency of these ships and their features, we made changes to the turning circle radius parameter of some ships, bringing them to the values indicated in the parameters section. For some ships, we made changes to their parameters sections.

Ship Actual turning circle radius before change Turning circle radius value indicated in the parameters Final turning circle radius value X Midway 836.36 1,230 1,230 VII Nueve de Julio 813.35 690 690 X Conqueror 938.19 820 940 X Thunderer 938.19 820 940 X Minotaur 754.29 660 750 VII Fiji 666.01 590 670 II Weymouth 559.78 500 560 IX Neptune 793.24 710 790 VI Leander 713.38 640 710 IX Dmitri Donskoi 967.58 870 970 III Caledon 585.44 530 580 VI Perth 704.38 640 700 V Emerald 736.41 670 730 I Black Swan 351.55 320 350 IX Iowa 1009.46 920 920 IV Danae 590.87 540 590 VII Belfast 736.38 680 730 VIII Edinburgh 736.26 680 730 V Texas 648.34 600 650 IX Missouri 994.12 920 990 X Audacious 1123.1 1040 1040 X Montana 1025.78 950 950 V New York 557.44 600 600 VII Sinop 893.26 960 960 VII Vauquelin 713.23 670 690 VI New Mexico 599.06 640 600 IV Phoenix 665.97 630 630 VIII Le Fantasque 650.9 690 690 VII Colorado 604.24 640 610

Regarding ships for which the discrepancies between the actual turning circle radius values and those indicated in the parameters were insignificant, we made system changes that brought their actual turning circle radius values to those indicated in the ship parameters section.

Ship Actual turning circle radius before change Turning circle radius value indicated in the parameters Final turning circle radius value VI Warspite 572.66 550 550 IV Langley 700.1 730 730 I Hashidate 280.65 270 270 IX Friedrich der Große 906.23 940 940 IV Myōgi 706.19 730 730 V Kongō V ARP Kongō V ARP Hiei V ARP Kirishima V ARP Haruna 745.32 770 770 IX Kitakaze 752.84 730 730 VII Gneisenau 805.52 830 830 III Turenne 495.17 510 510 X Marceau 760.91 740 740 X Kléber 760.83 740 740 VIII Prinz Eugen 748.63 770 770 VI Molotov 883.39 860 860 IV Arkansas Beta 575.05 590 590 IV Bourrasque 546.32 560 560 V Murmansk 604.19 590 590 III Kawachi 547.06 560 560 IX Roon 797.69 780 780 V Iron Duke 635.36 650 650 IX Fletcher 572.54 560 560 VII Jervis 603.04 590 590 VIII Admiral Hipper 723.72 740 740 X Großer Kurfürst 1027.37 1050 1050 V Minekaze 561.49 550 550 VIII Alabama 724.71 710 710 V König 607.29 620 620 VIII Baltimore 744.21 730 730 IV Imperator Nikolai I 647.16 660 660 X Shimakaze 703.06 690 690 VI Bayern 618.1 630 630 VI Fusō 726.49 740 740 IV Kaiser 589.36 600 600 X Zaō 854.56 840 840 VII New Orleans 671.31 660 660 IV Kuma 629.2 640 640 VIII ARP Takao 802.99 790 790 VIII Atago VIII Atago B 802.97 790 790 X Des Moines 782.05 770 770 VIII Tirpitz VIII Tirpitz B 862.48 850 850 X Hindenburg 788.51 800 800 X Moskva 1063.22 1050 1050 IX Lion 819.6 830 830

Content Additions and Changes

Cruisers VIII Tallinn, IX Riga, and X Petropavlovsk have become available to research for all players. Soviet Tokens have been exchanged for credits at the rate of 1:9,000. Submarine Tokens have been exchanged for credits at the rate of 1:15,000.

The icons, descriptions, and names of some types of ship consumables with special parameters have been changed. For example, the Smoke Generator consumable mounted on British destroyers of Tier VII and above, with its shorter reload and smoke screen dispersion times in comparison with ships of other nations. This change will emphasize the differences between these types of consumables and the standard ones.

We've updated the contents of supercontainers. The following items have been added:

• Ships: VI Admiral Makarov, VIII Mainz, VIII Champagne, VIII Cheshire, VIII Ochakov, VIII Pyotr Bagration, VIII Orkan, VII California, VI London, V Mikoyan, and V Kirov.
• 50x expendable camouflages: Hunter, Victory Salute, Blue Lagoon, Storm Wind, Happy Pi Day, gamescom Blue, Lunar Warrior, Regia Marina, and European.

The requirements for obtaining the Aircraft Carrier Commander emblem at all levels have been changed. Despite the fact that the average damage dealt by aircraft carriers per battle was different from that of cruisers and battleships, the requirements for obtaining the emblems were higher than those for cruisers and battleships. The new requirements have been brought in line with the average damage dealt by aircraft carriers per battle. To obtain these emblems, it is now necessary to have inflicted 60,000; 71,000; 84,000; and 113,000 average damage per battle in the last 100 battles. The emblems will be awarded to all players who meet the new requirements.

The designs of the Collector emblems have been updated to distinguish the emblems of different levels.

Ship Module Simplification

Due to the simplification of the research process, the following modules have been removed from the game:

• H8 torpedo module on IV KarlsruheItalic text and Mk15 mod.3 torpedo module on VI Monaghan. The improved torpedoes for these ships will now be mounted simultaneously with hull (B).
• Hull (C) on VI Farragut, VII Mahan, VIII Benson, and VI Nürnberg.
• If you have already researched any of the removed modules, you will have the XP spent on this research returned as compensation.
• If you have any of the removed modules in your Inventory, you will receive compensation equal to the module's value in credits.
• If you have any of the removed modules mounted on your ships, they will be replaced with the previous module and removed from your account. You will receive compensation for the module in the form of credits.
• If a replacement module is available in your Inventory, you will receive compensation for its value in credits. Because the stock torpedo module of IV Karlsruhe is available by default, you will receive 30,000 credits.
• If there is no replacement module available in your Inventory, you will receive a replacement free of charge; if the module has not yet been researched, it will automatically be researched.

Please note: compensation will not be provided for VI Monaghan, as it is not necessary to research or purchase her modules.

VIII Lexington's and X Midway's attack aircraft modules are now researched sequentially. The first module to be researched will be attack aircraft with HVAR 127 mm missiles, the next—with Tiny Tim missiles.

• If you have not researched attack aircraft armed with Tiny Tim missiles, you will not receive compensation.
• If you have researched attack aircraft with Tiny Tim missiles, and have not researched attack aircraft with HVAR 127 mm missiles, then these attack aircraft will automatically be researched.
• If you have researched both types of attack aircraft, you will receive 18,000 ship XP for VIII Lexington and 38,000 for X Midway.

Visual and Technical Enhancements

• The following Ports have been updated to accommodate the new lighting model and enhanced HDR technology: Naval Base, Azur Lane, Dragon, and Sarushima Base.
• Improved graphics quality at maximum settings.
• Improved quality of reflections in water at low settings.
• Added animated tooltips in the Tech Tree with descriptions of the ship types for new players.
• The relevant ship tier is now displayed in the naming of permanent camouflages.

Other Changes and Improvements

• Improved the geometry and textures of the following ships: VI Västerås, V Kongō, IX Izumo, VIII Tallinn, III Kawachi, IX Drake, X Goliath, VI London, VIII Cheshire, VIII Albemarle, III Romulus, VIII Roma, VI Anshan, VI Fushun, X Hakuryū, VI Aigle, VII Minsk, V Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, VIII Shōkaku, VIII Admiral Hipper, VII Vauquelin, and VI Warspite.
• A mention has been added to the tooltip for some Commanders' talents, stating that these talents do not apply to air group consumables.
• The yellow ribbon is no longer displayed on unique Commanders without improved skills or talents.
• Removed an extra separator in the Minimap settings window in battle when operating an aircraft carrier.
• Changed the description of the pop-up tooltip when hovering over the Armory banner on the cargo ship.
• Changed the order of displayed ship-type icons and tooltip descriptions in the Training Room.
• Fixed a bug where the emblem of the Ranked Season was displayed when selecting statistics for all seasons.
• Fixed a bug that caused collisions with islands on the Trident map to occur at a considerable distance away from the land.
• Fixed a bug where the reduced reload time for weapons in battle was not displayed after a unique Commanders' corresponding talents had been activated.
• Fixed a bug that caused video memory consumption to increase after changing the size of the client window.
• Fixed a bug where an allied ship's HP bar was not displayed when observing the battle.
• Fixed a bug where the names of the rear and front plates of the main battery turrets on cruisers VII Gorizia and VII Zara were swapped.
• Fixed a bug which caused locked targets to not be displayed on the Tactical Map.
• Fixed a bug where the banner of rewards for achieving access levels did not display the next reward.
• Fixed a bug that made it possible to receive an invitation to join a Division from a player on the black list.
• Fixed a bug where some camouflages were not displayed in the list of camouflages in the Captain's Logbook.
• Fixed a bug that caused certain special camouflages for Black Friday ships to be displayed incorrectly on MacOS and systems without full DirectX 11 support.
• Fixed a bug that caused the text under the Warships Premium Account icon in the personal offer pop-up window to be displayed incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug that caused the "BATTLE ON" button to disappear on the battle statistics screen when restarting the client during a battle.
• Fixed a bug that caused the engine sound to be played on ships with space camouflages after incurring an instance of flooding.
• Fixed a bug that caused the game client to close when changing consumables after having left the battle playing a ship which the player didn't have enough credits to service.
• Fixed a bug that caused the detectability of a burning ship to be reduced when firing main battery guns.
• Fixed a bug where part of the Dockyard interface was displayed in the Port after having left the Dockyard.
• The game can now be launched only with the Wargaming.net Game Center running.
• A description of the features of the VIII Tallinn—X Petropavlovsk Soviet cruiser sub-branch has been added to the Tech Tree.
• Fixed a bug that caused VII Surrey's engine power value to be displayed incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug where stars were not displayed on the battle statistics screen in Operations.
• Fixed a bug that caused some upgrades on unresearched ships to be displayed as pre-mounted when they were not.
• Fixed a bug that caused the ship parameters section to blink when switching to the Tech Tree tab.
• Fixed a bug that caused the button which takes players to the list of combat missions to be displayed on the battle statistics screen in the absence of progress in combat missions.
• Fixed a bug where the Division window didn't display the restrictions on ship types when forming a Division in Clan Battles.
• Fixed a bug where binding a ship's consumables to user keys didn't affect the consumables of aircraft carriers' squadrons.
• Fixed a bug that caused a completed chain of missions to be displayed as incomplete on the battle statistics screen.
• Fixed a bug where the Clan chat received the same message twice when fixing the Prime Time.
• Fixed a bug that caused the ESC button to overlap the title of the window for purchasing and mounting modules.
• The text about the possibility of selling consumables has been removed from the description of the Inventory in the Access Levels.
• Fixed a bug that caused a button with the description of the features of the Soviet cruiser branch to not be displayed in the Tech Tree.

[transmission ends]