Important message for the community

[King_Of_The_Potatoes]

@Crysantos notice you have gone radio silent. Really I'm not suprised with the sh*tshow on the CIS forum the sacking of a member of the NA team and now the resignation in protest by the WOT NA manager can we just agree that WG is in a sh*t state and this statement is really not worth even discussing anymore.

 

The issue is no longer the game lootboxes or WG stupid bad ideas. It's the upper management. Until there is a big change at the top this game will continue to be the cesspool it has become.

[Sunleader]

Well frankly I cant blame him.

Things were just finally calming down. And then the Higher Ups not only decided to pour a whole canister of gasoline into the Fire to Reignite it by throwing out an Employee which LWM has complimented several times over the course of this whole farce. But then Malik basicly went ahead and Declared everyone who dares critisizing his Game an Idiot and that he knows best so we should all just shut up.

 

Now assuming that maybe he was already thinking about how to somehow diffuse that at least in the EU Forums. And also maybe prevent it from blowing up again.

He today comes to the Forums and a Senior Manager basicly went ahead Confirming the Communities worst claims of WG only needing Sacrificial Pawn to throw under the Bus.

Thus effectively throwing not just a Stick but a whole Bundle of Dynamite into the Dumpster Fire....

 

 

So Yeah. My Condolences to the Community Managers and Mods which just managed to get the Situation somewhat under control and now are basicly back to Step 1....

[Benser33]

14 minutes ago, Ghesthar said:

So, last part and this come down to monetization 'aggression' as the problem. But, as above, what is aggression?

 

Is it the number of simultaneous options? There is a lot of choice if one wants to pay, but with the exception of individuals who want ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, I'm not really sure why anyone would feel excessively monetized?

Sorry, I have tried to define "aggression" a few times without really saying in terms what I mean. Your last conclusion is partly right, but it isn't just about everything being monetised and the simultaneous options, it's that in recent months events have increasingly become about having to choose what you're losing out on. Things have escalated over time to reach this state, and it is this rate of growth that is often considered aggressive, especially as it continues to overburden a greater and greater portion of the playerbase and develops to include more and more contentious methods like diluted forms of gambling.

 

When you look at a lot of WGs offerings piece by piece they can often seem more or less reasonable on their own. Dockyards are pretty flexible with how much you might pay vs how much time you spend. Early access events often offer the first few rewards at no monetary cost. Collab events aren't really part of the problem, they're overpriced, but largely optional, relevant only to those that consider the collab interesting.

 

But not every development is an improvement. Ranked became an "endless" mode that you can't grind out early and then set aside but instead needs weekly effort. CBs run as usual, no longer alternating with ranked but overlapping. And it's important to remember that even the stuff that does not cost money is a part of WGs monetization strategy, it's accounted for, you pay a toll in time for the things you do not pay for and that may cost you something else.

 

The aggressiveness is the frequency with which these things have begun to occur over time. Right now we have;

• Missouri web event
• D7P dockyard
• Dutch Cruisers part 2
• Submarines
• Ranked
• Clan Battles

And this is ontop of the regular day to day grinding of new ships or regrinding of ships for RB which might dictate what you actually play rather than what you want to play. Some of these things can be done simultaneously but not all, some dictate to a moderate degree what you play, some to a minor degree. But this is far more to take part in simultaneously than in the past, and this escalation of how frequently the events are deployed, what they involve, what players must do to achieve the things they want are all a noticable degree more severe than the past. The way in which WG has begun to pile events onto players without pause has led those who would like to earn what they freely can to have to play without pause and the way in which it is usually accompanied by increasingly expensive alternatives and such while seemingly ignoring complaints to the contrary. Prices of which are frequently masked behind chance and fictional tokens and other currencies that attempt to divert perceptions away from the true value of content.

 

What used to be doable and achievable is apparently not considered OK by WG and required changes that result in the overburdening previously mentioned. WG's plan is to provide so much content that no one can do everything they want to do, even when they don't want to do everything available, even just trying to play a few games and complete a current relevant event is a challenge because you could be juggling 2-3 events at the same time with ship restrictions. You yourself have stated both that you have skipped out on playing some seasons of ranked when you don't have the time and that you agree some events require too much time, you've experienced for yourself that you don't have to want absolutely everything to be affected. And that is partly because WG have ramped up their efforts to overburden players so that as many players as possible feel the squeeze. This overall change in ethos, combined with the new methods for distributing content and the costs (both time and money) of everything are all indicators of WGs strategy to generate revenue. And it has not showed any signs of slowing down for some time.

 

Missouri is a great example of how WGs approach has changed over the years. Her original price was 750k free exp. Today, potentially up to 100k dubloons. Obtaining Missouri has evolved from earning FXP by just playing the game and/or spending up to 30,000 dubloons to convert fxp, to having to spend up to 100,000 dubloons to gamble for a nerfed version of her (somehow even worse infact, since the pacific tokens can also be used to buy the chain container bundles inviting added investment exploiting sunk cost fallacy). If the community had not spoken up on the subject of Missouri, that would have been how WG would have adapted to meet their current strategy, over 3x more expensive and mandatory participation in gambling for a lesser product. Because the community spoke up, our options are up to 60,000 dubloons to optionally gamble for her or 19,300 dubloon straight purchase.

 

But that's an indication of how much things have changed, and it's just one example. Maybe you don't think that is a severe difference or would justify it in other ways (for 45k of random bundles you also get 5 random premiums tier 8, 7, 6, 5 and lower, because who doesn't love containers that include every ship you were not interested in so far?) but a lot of players object to the changes they have witnessed over the years and their increasing intensity and frequency as time goes on. Overburdening? Unrelenting? Aggressive? Term it how you will, but a strategy of psychologically exploiting duressed players by overloading them with content, making everything take too long to fit into a day but too expensive to buy out, forcing players who want to make the most of the game try to figure out how to efficiently maximise both? This is not a friendly way to market your game content to your own players, I would certainly consider it aggressive.

[Ghesthar]

3 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

And this is ontop of the regular day to day grinding of new ships or regrinding of ships for RB which might dictate what you actually play rather than what you want to play.

I agree with this - we've already talked about event simultaneity - but I'm not sure about the link to aggressive monetization. Like, of your list, 4/6 (plus all the 'normal' grind stuff) are entirely free - CB, Ranked, Subs, and Dutch Cruisers 2 (I think this one is just the little mission chain?). CBs and Ranked definitely have the 'can only do one' issue, alongside normal randoms/grinds, but subs are part of ranked (with no? monetization aspect), but Subs are literally just part of ranked right now - they aren't separate or exclusive in and of themselves, though they also don't count for anything, so I suppose that is the part that matters.

 

So, for monetization, there is the dockyard, and Missouri. I really do see the dockyards as the best 'value' monetization offerings WG has put out, at least recently. Maybe the grinds that exist really are too much for some people, and the 'pay to finish' aspect (beyond the required spend) looms large for them. I'd be somewhat interested to know about that, but mostly in a 'proportion of players' kind of way, which I don't think I'm likely to get.

 

The Missouri web event itself costs nothing, again, but you're clearly complaining about the boxes/points/acquisition aspect, moreso than the mission chain here. I don't really find it defensible - the value is atrocious, both with the points and the Missouri cost - but I also don't find it especially reprehensible once placed alongside the ability to straight-up buy Missouri.

 

So, again, there is a bit of a conflation here between 'too many events' and 'too much monetization' - there aren't even many monetization OPTIONS in your list, but there are a lot of time constraints. I suppose this could influence whether or not you want to buy premium, or spend on other 'grind faster' elements, but these accelerants would then be applied to the side of the game where there is little to no time pressure - tech tree ships don't vanish, and when they do, the lead times are fairly generous.

 

So, I agree with the event overloading aspect - I don't like it either. I'm just still not sure how (or even if) it contributes to monetization aggression.

 

3 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Missouri is a great example of how WGs approach has changed over the years. Her original price was 750k free exp. Today, potentially up to 100k dubloons.

As I've said, I agree entirely with the terrible value of the missouri event, but once alongside the 'pay directly' thing it kind of loses out. The 'original 750k fxp' thing is kind of a weird argument - more recent FXP ships have been more XP, and less 'value' (no insane earnings, only the somewhat unique/different ship) propositions, and even those have been rotating. By today's standards, the original is obviously massively undercosted. Now, arguing that is just WG inflation is kind of correct, but at the same time, the ingame economy lacks sinks - a ship costing 1m fxp isn't a large hurdle for a decent chunk of the playerbase, while still being difficult or unobtainable for other segments. This is obviously a rod WG created for their own back, but I'm not sure how reasonable bringing up the original cost is.

 

The Missouri monetization model is/was awful. It deserved to be pushed back against. It is now up for direct sale at the same price as other t9s. I do find the 'points' alongside in the boxes to be a terrible value proposition, just like the points and similar in most of the techtree release event boxes. However, that is a subjective value argument, isn't it? Like, I do not think getting a ship a few weeks early or getting a 'unique' t10 permacamo is worth the asking price, so I don't buy it. I know, in this way, I'm a broken record, but those are the offerings - an overpriced permacamo and a tech tree ship a few weeks early - and if someone feels like they 'must' have them, I don't think the argument that they 'must' have them at a lower price is especially compelling. The rest of the release events, while the add to the event overload aspect, are free offerings, and the missions tend to 'just happen.' If someone misses out a bit and needs to buy a box to complete the last 'free' tick of these, is someone having the option of spending 1000 dubs to get a pre-release tier 7 tech tree ship bad value, or aggressive?

 

3 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Overburdening? Unrelenting? Aggressive? Term it how you will, but a strategy of psychologically exploiting duressed players by overloading them with content, making everything take too long to fit into a day but too expensive to buy out, forcing players who want to make the most of the game try to figure out how to efficiently maximise both? This is not a friendly way to market your game content to your own players, I would certainly consider it aggressive.

I think I agree with this as a conclusion: Aggression isn't the presence, but the monetization plus the overload. However, could you just go back over your list of current events and pick apart 'event overload' vs 'monetization aggression' for me, since I can agree with the first, but there are so few monetization tie-ins with the current events that I'm not sure I really see the second. Like, Missouri and similar shouldn't be in this particular argument, right? Poor value, overpriced, gamble only - valid reasonable complaints, but they don't fit the rest of the argument at all?

 

edit: I kind of see missouri, after a moment, as there is a little bit of 'grind' to do the mission chain to make it normal premium cost. In the absence of the lootbox option, would it still feel as bad? Like, if they had released the mission chain exactly as is, and it allows you to buy missouri directly, with no option for nonsensically bad value lootboxes at any point -is this event now basically such an 'avatar' of 'wg bad' that its mere presence fills the game with negative feelings, while the implementation would actually be much less objectionable if it just released in its current (or a tweaked version of current) state?

[VerbotenCandy]

11 hours ago, King_Of_The_Potatoes said:

The issue is no longer the game lootboxes or WG stupid bad ideas. It's the upper management. Until there is a big change at the top this game will continue to be the cesspool it has become.

This. I talked about culturally change being hard, but it comes from the top - these guys set the tone. If they're serious, they will need to change - and, if they can't, they need to seriously consider if they are the right people to be leading that organisation.

 

I mean, this is what mature organisations do in just about every other field. Come on, WG.

[Terradyn]

WG, could you please return old style designer's table menu? I really don't understand why do you messing up everything I like on the game... Rockets on CVs, OP DDs and CAs, crippling FDR, submarines(most of my ships do not have deep water charges or other weapons against SM) and now the designer's table... What about create new called Gamer's table and leave designer's table in the 40's?

[Andrewbassg]

17 hours ago, King_Of_The_Potatoes said:

@Crysantos notice you have gone radio silent. Really I'm not suprised with the sh*tshow on the CIS forum the sacking of a member of the NA team and now the resignation in protest by the WOT NA manager can we just agree that WG is in a sh*t state and this statement is really not worth even discussing anymore.

 

The issue is no longer the game lootboxes or WG stupid bad ideas. It's the upper management. Until there is a big change at the top this game will continue to be the cesspool it has become.

 

16 hours ago, Sunleader said:

Well frankly I cant blame him.

Things were just finally calming down. And then the Higher Ups not only decided to pour a whole canister of gasoline into the Fire to Reignite it by throwing out an Employee which LWM has complimented several times over the course of this whole farce. But then Malik basicly went ahead and Declared everyone who dares critisizing his Game an Idiot and that he knows best so we should all just shut up.

 

Now assuming that maybe he was already thinking about how to somehow diffuse that at least in the EU Forums. And also maybe prevent it from blowing up again.

He today comes to the Forums and a Senior Manager basicly went ahead Confirming the Communities worst claims of WG only needing Sacrificial Pawn to throw under the Bus.

Thus effectively throwing not just a Stick but a whole Bundle of Dynamite into the Dumpster Fire....

 

 

So Yeah. My Condolences to the Community Managers and Mods which just managed to get the Situation somewhat under control and now are basicly back to Step 1....

Pretty much this. We interact with them, but they don't call the shots and are not to blame. At least here on EU. NA.....that's a whole different cake. They really seem incapable to grasp the situation. let alone to address it.

[Sunleader]

22 minutes ago, Andrewbassg said:

 

Pretty much this. We interact with them, but they don't call the shots and are not to blame. At least here on EU. NA.....that's a whole different cake. They really seem incapable to grasp the situation. let alone to address it.

 

Ha. You wanna Complain about NA ?

Look at how Malik interacts with Russian Community xD

[rage1750]

Dont worry everyone, spreadsheet says everything is fine 

[anonym_cwVecOS6ecVy]

So WG is already banning posts with Flamu videos in the NA forums. Is this your community quality offensive, WG? I guess the games will continue!
 

 

[Andrewbassg]

6 hours ago, Sunleader said:

 

Ha. You wanna Complain about NA ?

Look at how Malik interacts with Russian Community xD

Oh...I'm Hu from Ro. Believe me, i know and met quite a few....'Malix"..

[Sunleader]

2 hours ago, Von_Pruss said:

So WG is already banning posts with Flamu videos in the NA forums. Is this your community quality offensive, WG? I guess the games will continue!
 

 

 

Well. We had almost a Day without WG puring more Fuel into that Dumpster Fire.

So I guess it was about time someone at WG messed up.

 

But if thats true its hilarios that they would Seriously Start yet another War by Banning Flamus Videos from the Forum and its also quite the Testament to how little they care by now.

[Benser33]

4 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

So, for monetization, there is the dockyard, and Missouri. I really do see the dockyards as the best 'value' monetization offerings WG has put out, at least recently. Maybe the grinds that exist really are too much for some people, and the 'pay to finish' aspect (beyond the required spend) looms large for them. I'd be somewhat interested to know about that, but mostly in a 'proportion of players' kind of way, which I don't think I'm likely to get.

Bear in mind that the things that you can't pay for are things you obtain with time. In the same way that most people can't buy literally everything most people also don't have the time for literally everything.

 

I would also be curious to know how many people really approach the dockyards with a sense that they are content to buy a few stages if they don't have the time but most people prefer to only buy what starter packs are available if they dont want to grind the whole thing themselves rather than buy individual stages.

 

Quote

The Missouri web event itself costs nothing, again, but you're clearly complaining about the boxes/points/acquisition aspect, moreso than the mission chain here. I don't really find it defensible - the value is atrocious, both with the points and the Missouri cost - but I also don't find it especially reprehensible once placed alongside the ability to straight-up buy Missouri.

Yet what we have now, this atrociously valued web event and the ability to buy Missouri straight up, is an improvement over WGs original idea for the event. The concessions we have here are only due to the community speaking out. What you should find reprehensible is the original idea.

 

I mean, if someone plans to murder you and someone else convinces them otherwise, wouldn't you still be concerned about the fact they intended to do that in the first place?

 

Quote

So, again, there is a bit of a conflation here between 'too many events' and 'too much monetization' - there aren't even many monetization OPTIONS in your list, but there are a lot of time constraints. I suppose this could influence whether or not you want to buy premium, or spend on other 'grind faster' elements, but these accelerants would then be applied to the side of the game where there is little to no time pressure - tech tree ships don't vanish, and when they do, the lead times are fairly generous.

 

So, I agree with the event overloading aspect - I don't like it either. I'm just still not sure how (or even if) it contributes to monetization aggression.

I think what you are missing here is that "too many events" is "too much monetization". And events that don't require you to spend anything are still included in the events that constitute "too many" because they still require your time if you want to do them. And even tech tree early access events have exclusive rewards, like thematic permacamos that rarely, if ever, return.

 

Quote

As I've said, I agree entirely with the terrible value of the missouri event,... but I'm not sure how reasonable bringing up the original cost is.

The point here is that if there had been no push back, or if WG had refused to concede, this is what we would have gotten. And it is worth considering that this is not an example of the inflated price of Missouri, or even premiums generally, but the entire game. This is how they have escalated everything, both time and monetary, over recent years. Just because we got a more reasonable result this time doesn't mean they aren't aiming for this same target going forward. Nothing says they won't apply the same sort of criteria to everything else they plan for the future.

 

The exact quantification of Missouri specifically is less relevant, it has just served to provide the community with the perfect example of how things have changed. Back when Missouri was released, WG thought 750k fxp for a tier 9 premium was reasonable. Now, they believe that 100k dubloons worth of random containers is reasonable.

 

Do you prefer 2021 WG over 2016 WG for deciding how much is a reasonable method of obtaining new content?

 

Quote

By today's standards, the original is obviously massively undercosted.

Is it? Or are todays standards just too high?

WG didn't even believe that Missouri should abide by todays relatively high costs, and was not originally prepared to offer the ship for a current "normal" price until the community demanded it. Clearly they believe it is worth even more than that, that 19,300 dubs is not enough for this ship. On the model that was originally leaked, or whichever, of 72 bundles, assuming even weight and the same 1500 dubloon per bundle price tag, would have earned you a 17.5% chance to get Missouri with a 19k dub investment. And this is the ship with its historical value but not its income value, so pressumably they rate the high income version even higher.

 

Quote

The Missouri monetization model is/was awful. It deserved to be pushed back against... is someone having the option of spending 1000 dubs to get a pre-release tier 7 tech tree ship bad value, or aggressive?

Is this one example aggressive? No. But, it's just a tier 7 tech tree ship, there is not much value to it. But it is not the single event, unless the only reason you are playing is to get a tier 7 dutch cruiser slightly earlier.

 

I also personally pay little attention to the early access events, as I tend to believe I will just grind the ships out myself later. That said, I have yet to start the dutch cruisers, my ITA BB and Ger DD are at tier 7 so it certainly feels like I'm falling behind a bit in that regard.

 

Sadly, my play time tends to be consumed doing other stuff.

 

Quote

I think I agree with this as a conclusion: Aggression isn't the presence, but the monetization plus the overload. However, could you just go back over your list of current events and pick apart 'event overload' vs 'monetization aggression' for me, since I can agree with the first, but there are so few monetization tie-ins with the current events that I'm not sure I really see the second. Like, Missouri and similar shouldn't be in this particular argument, right? Poor value, overpriced, gamble only - valid reasonable complaints, but they don't fit the rest of the argument at all?

For accuracy I will just update my list to the current patch. I label these all as events even if they are strict contiguous and not necessarily one off planned occasions.

• Missouri web event - This is a time and/or monetary cost event that dictates what you play. Your options are;
  • Gamble on random bundles that are terrible value.
  • Complete a chain of missions to earn permission to buy the ship directly and avoid having to gamble. Missions are pretty straightforward but time gated and with ship requirements.
  • For free by completing the chain you can get 1750 tokens, enough for a commander or a t2-4 premium, and buying one random bundle also buys you a tier 5 premium, which can theoretically begin a cascade of buying additional bundles.
  • If you want Missouri, the commanders, the flag, the premium ship containers you must; Pay/Grind/Both
  • This event is available for a limited time.
• D7P dockyard - This is a time and/or monetary cost event that dictates what you play. Your options are;
  • Play entirely for free, grind the missions out and obtain most of the rewards, excluding the vessel itself.
  • Buy a cost effective booster early and grind the missions out to obtain all of the rewards including a t8 premium for a more time but less monetary cost than a regular t8 premium.
  • Buy an extended booster and/or varying numbers of extra stages to buy the ship without doing some/all of the grind, quite significantly reducing the cost effectiveness, even when account for the supplemental rewards.
  • Buy all stages and grind the missions out to gain all of the dockyard reward track rewards plus 250 steel per stage for up to 21 excess stages (stages must be bought in advance for excess to be worth Steel, you must commit to the purchase before completing the grind), one of the few ways you can purchase a limited amount of an otherwise time gated currency, through a large time and monetary investment.
  • Dockyard missions are selectively available in different mode, some can't be complete in any mode except random/ranked, some can even be completed in CW, but with varying requirements can be completed concurrently with most other missions. Missions are time gated and the final chapter of missions provides 15 days to complete the dockyard.
    • Dockyard missions regarding earning EXP/CXP can be done in Clan Wars, the rest cannot. Missions that reward special signals cannot be done in co-op.
  • This event is available for a limited time.
• Recurring daily/weekly/monthly missions - This is a time cost event that can't be accelerated through money.
  • At 50% winrate completing the 3 missions to play/win daily games takes on average 8 games per day.
  • No real requirements for these missions, you can probably do these most days that you play.
  • These have to be completed a number of days each month to obtain the full rewards.
• Daily containers - This is a minor time and monetary cost event
  • In addition to the daily missions to play games you can also select 3 containers a day for earning 2k/12k/37k exp per day.
  • With a premium account and a premium ship in randoms this can be done in a few battles.
  • For a F2P player this can take longer to achieve, but it can be progressed in every battle concurrently with every other event, it may only dictate the minimum time spent playing in a day if a player wanted to obtain all 3 containers for example if they wanted to maximise their chances to get super containers via Try Your Luck for free premiums. Oh look, free gambling!
• Brazil Independence Missions - This is a minor time cost event that can't be accelerated through money.
  • Other than making sure to get 199 hits in a battle for the first mission these are easily completed in any mode and award a collectible flag.
  • This event is available for a limited time.
• Clan Battles - This is a time cost event which dictates what you play and when that can't be accelerated through money.
  • You can play a maximum of 16 hours of clan battles a week during the clans selected prime time.
  • Most missions cannot be completed in CBs, you're also frequently restricted in tier, playing ships that need exp for progress is not generally desirable and a capable clan with some organisation is required to succeed.
  • Clan battles frequently recur but are one of the primary sources of Steel which is effectively a highly time gated currency.
  • Almost no missions can be progressed while playing CB that contribute to other events.
  • CBs rewards also include 30 days of premium time which is highly desirable to F2P players, but they may still sacrifice time they could have spent on other events to take part in CBs.
• Ranked - This is a time cost event which dictates what you play that can't be accelerated through money.
  • 12/18/26 wins are required each week to obtain the maximum rewards.
  • More games than this are likely to be required to advance to higher ranks if desired.
  • The efficiency at which you earn steel is tied to winrate, so Bronze league can be faster even if the total you can earn is lower than Silver/Gold.
  • Ranked is another primary source of Steel.
  • Most missions can be completed in ranked.
  • New rewards can be earned weekly and the season lasts for multiple weeks with frequent recurrence making ranked almost always available, but limited in the progress that can be made week by week.
• Brawls - This is a time cost event which dictates what you play that can't be accelerated through money.
  • Much like ranked, brawls are a game mode that differs with lineup and typically rewards games with credits, commander exp and coal.
  • Over time, the number of games needed for brawls has increased quite a lot.
  • Brawls can add some interesting variety to play and opportunities to succeed with divs of friends, but often Brawls cannot be used to progress missions.
• Operations - This is a time cost event.
  • Operations as a game mode are the preference of a minority population of the game.
  • Typically very few missions can be progressed in this mode, players who like to play Scenarios primarily will have to switch to playing another game mode if they want to complete the objectives of other events.
  • Progress is also slower, incentivising the use of premium time to compensate for potential losses.
  • Most players will complete operations at least until they have the one-time rewards for 5 star completions of the mode, but this will probably not contribute progress to other events.
• Convoys - This is a time cost event, probably.
  • New to this patch, we don't have any details on this yet.
  • I would think it is likely to come with its own missions but will not be elligible to progress most objectives for other events.
• RU CV Event - This is a time and/or monetary cost event.
  • Missions are pretty simple and can be progressed in every game and only really requires attention once a week.
  • Freely obtainable 1600 tokens will buy every bundle except for the last one assuming full participation in the missions. Which earns the player the tier 4 and 6 carriers and permacamos for the tier 4, 6 and 8.
  • 200 tokens can be bought for 2000 community tokens. The remaining tokens can be bought through random bundles.
  • Early access to Tier 8 Pobeda is available exclusively through 800 extra tokens. Obtaining 600 tokens requires a maximum of 9 bundles to be purchased to secure this assuming you don't get the t10 permacamo bundle because it contains no tokens. There is a chance to get 500 tokens from a single bundle also.
  • The tier 10 permacamo is available exclusively through the random bundles, of which there are 30 costing 1000 dubloons each.
• Dutch cruiser full release - This is a time and/or monetary cost event.
  • The ships are now available to grind and can be done freely or expedited through money at the players discretion.
  • This is entirely optional unless the ships are considered a strong meta pick for any reason which increases the desirability to certain players.
  • The amount of grinding you need to do for these ships (and other recent new released) may be less depending on your participation in early access events.
• Submarines - This is a time cost event that can't be accelerated through money.
  • You can play submarines in ranked or coop for a while.
  • This just lets you experience the class and is entirely optional since it rewards nothing other than the personal experience of how the class works and the chance to form an opinion for feedback and such.
  • You also get some coal for checking.
• Research Bureau - This is a time and/or monetary cost event.
  • Ship lines can be reset at will once a player unlocks the RB.
  • Less lines, and thus less time, can be spent by taking advantage of the 2x bonuses to RB resets every 3 months.
  • Since the RB released 340k RP worth of ships have been released. If a player reset a line every season since release (9) they would have 180k RP (20k per reset) from line resets and would need another 160k research points (~16 resets of non-CVs) to have obtained every ship released since August 2019, or a total of 25 resets in 25 months, regrinding 1 line per month. This does exclude supplementary RP from other sources like recurring missions.
  • Players can speed up their regrinds through some smart techniques, utilising FXP or using premium time and currency conversion to expedite things.
  • You can theoretically grind RP endlessly or not take part at all, but if you do want any or multiple RB ships it is a reasonable investment of time per ship (50-60k RP) and if you've already earned the ship you reset you are then denied use of that line until you regrind it.
• Premium ship releases - This is a time and/or monetary cost event.
  • Excluding collab ships WG released 39 premium ships in 2020 and has released 25 so far this year with >15 in development.
  • Ships require either direct purchase, coal, steel, FXP or research points to obtain.
  • Steel can be difficult to obtain and is desired almost exclusively for t10 ships and is rarely available for sale. Most methods for obtaining large quantities of steel are not conducive with progress towards other listed events.
  • Coal is easier to obtain and is also desired almost exclusively for t9-10 ships and cannot typically be bought in sufficient quantities to purchase a ship
  • FXP can be bought in large enough quantities to buy entire ships or ship lines with and is a flexible resource for freely developing ships and commanders but requires the player to earn convertable EXP first in order to convert at a pretty terrible exchange rate if it is desired so badly that a monetary solution is considered.
  • RP covered above and have only been purchaseable through excess dockyard stage rewards that I can recall.
  • Direct purchases cost real money.
  • Many of these purchases can be made with a discount utilising armory category coupons, but newly released ships for direct purchase are frequently placed in the New category which does not have an accompanying coupon and sometimes they do not enter the Armory proper, necessitating an undiscounted purchase.
  • In addition to direct purchases, WG has also made at least one new ship, Agincourt, not available for direct purchase but only through chance based containers.
  • These ships come and go, removed from sale for various reasons
• Naval Battles - This is a time cost event that dictates what you play that can't be accelerated through money.
  • Contribute oil to your clan by hitting objectives for specific class/nation combos.
  • Depending on your clan how much you can contribute may vary but if you have a wide range of ships and a moderate clan you may find yourself playing ships that would not be your first choice.
  • You're free to choose what you do play though, whether you can succeed with them or not, or opt out of participating entirely.
• Campaigns - This is a time cost event that dictates what you play that can't be accelerated through money.
  • Persistent campaigns and temporary campaigns have both existed over time.
  • There are no temporary campaigns at the moment.
  • Campaign missions can be chosen and played at will, or ignored as they are not going anywhere.
  • You can repeat the same missions to earn stars or complete different missions, of varying difficulty and requirment. They are not very disruptive to play unless you go out of your way to achieve a specific objective.
  • Rewards like Shinonome, Halsey and Yamamoto are exclusive but not limited in availability, just requiring continuous effort over time.
• Collections - This is a minor time and monetary cost event.
  • Collections typically require little effort and do reward exclusive rewards but very few are temporary unless related to a collab.
  • Collectibles tend to be acquired either through the normal daily grind of containers are rarely interferes with the daily process, with collectibles appearing in normal daily containers.
  • Some collectibles only exist in specific containers, some of these can be bought for coal in the armory though not at a very desirable exchange rate unless a single container is needed to activate the collection for normal progression.

If you're checking all of this stuff on a daily basis when you log in, then, you've got a lot of stuff on your plate. Can you do all of this simultaneously? No.

 

When you look at this entire list, which may not include everything, you can see that there are plenty of things active at the same time that are not all doable concurrently. Essentially, everything except direct purchase premium ship releases involves some time contribution. Some require a monetary contribution to take full advantage of, some can be accelerated with money, some are only available for money.

 

Then you have the things that money can't boost, you could choose between spending your evenings playing randoms/ranked to get RU CV progress or playing CBs to get steel. But, you can pay to progress the RU CV event whereas you can't do it to progress in CBs. As a result, you might prioritise doing CBs over doing the RU CV event because you have no alternative way to succeed in CBs than to participate, whereas if you really wanted the RU CV event stuff you could just buy it.

 

It can be difficult for players to go about completing event objectives like dockyard missions, the web event and the new release event while also doing "everyday" things like grinding new lines (that may not progress missions) playing ranked or CB (which don't typically progress missions) or even necessarily playing ships that they enjoy (due to class/nation/tier restrictions). It is often necessary to choose. You might, for example, elect not to play ranked. But then you can find yourelf constantly choosing not to play ranked for weeks or months because the events never stop. You might find yourself on the last days of the dockyard hard grinding some objectives because you didn't or couldn't commit enough time to it. And then the next event begins. Alternatively, you might decide you can do most everything in ranked so you just play ranked, and instead you're confined to the tier of the ranked league you're in.

 

So, when you don't have enough time for everything, you can resort to buying out stuff. When they add even more stuff, you are more likely to not have enough time. WG provide so much stuff to do that it's almost impossible to complete things and recover from the lists of objectives and content. So adding more content, even if it is non monetized, increased incentive to take the monetized options of the monetized content because you need the time you have to do the things you can't just skip by buying.

 

If I summarise the way the various things all fit into a strategy

• Expense - Monetarily, derived from chance based distribution/gambling, high total/potential cost, exploitative implementation, resource sinks, incentivised time savers and subjectively poor value
  • Missouri - all of the above
  • Dockyard - high potential cost, incentivised time savers
  • RU CV event/early access events - all of the above
  • Daily containers - chance based distribution
  • Research Bureau - incentivised time savers, resource sinks
  • Premium ship releases - high potential cost, exploitative implementation, incentivised time savers, resource sinks, forms of gambling (new!)
  • Campaigns (premium) - some limited time campaigns required money to unlock or progress
• Time investment - "Free", derived from large amounts of time required, never ending modes/seasonal/repeating, time gated, limited time, strict or moderate requirements (ship class/nation/tier), minimum time (requires at least some time), can't be bought (so take part or miss out), inefficient use of time/can't be done simultaneously with other events
  • Missouri - moderate requirements, time gated, limited time, minimum time
  • Dockyard - large time requirement, moderate requirements, time gated, limited time
  • Recurring quests - repeating
  • Daily containers - repeating
  • Clan Battles - time gated, large amounts of time required, limited time, moderate requirements, can't be bought, seasonal
  • Ranked - time gated, large amounts of time required, limited time, moderate requirements, can't be bought, seasonal
  • Brawls - limited time, moderate requirements, can't be bought
  • Operations - cant be done simultaneously with other events, moderate requirements
  • RU CV event/early access events - large amount of time required, time gated, limited time
  • Submarines - limited time, inefficient use of time
  • Research Bureau - large amounts of time required, can't be skipped, seasonal
  • Premium ship releases - large amounts of time required (collectings resources over months), repeating, limited time
  • Naval battles - repeating, limited time, moderate requirements, cant be bought (not sure why you would)
  • Campaigns (free) - limited time , can't be bought
  • Collections - limited time, can't be bought
• Both
  • Time per month, almost all of these events are occuring simultaneously but not everything can be completed concurrently with each other. Players who dont find events interesting are fortunate in that they can choose to use their free time more at their own discretion, but most players will at least try to participate in the vast majority of events available, both long term projects and new events.
  • Cost per month, the total amount a player might pay if they spend the minimum required to obtain all content (thus electing to spend as much time as necessary to complete what can be achieved purely through time) continues to grow year on year and the maximum they could potentially spend increases significantly more.

Even when something is completely reasonable of itself, like playing CBs with your clan to earn steel, which is basically totally free, your use of your time to do that denies you the time to achieve other stuff because it's designed to not enable progress in most events. It could just be that WG tries to add enough content that everyone has something to do, so that even the people that have completed every campaign, don't want any steel ships, don't want premium ships, don't want RU CVs, aren't in a clan, etc still have content to keep them occupied. But the less content being delivered by WG that a player is interested in, the less valuable that player is, if the only thing you enjoy about wows is farming t1 battles in Black Swan then you are not the target audience for all of this content.

 

The main target audience are the people who consider themselves interested in, and capable of attaining, the majority of the content. Meanwhile WG makes it increasingly difficult to achieve that.

 

This seems like an incredibly long way to address your question of determining which are overload and which are monetization, when the answer is that almost everything contributes to both just by being one or the other.

 

Quote

edit: I kind of see missouri, after a moment, as there is a little bit of 'grind' to do the mission chain to make it normal premium cost. In the absence of the lootbox option, would it still feel as bad? Like, if they had released the mission chain exactly as is, and it allows you to buy missouri directly, with no option for nonsensically bad value lootboxes at any point -is this event now basically such an 'avatar' of 'wg bad' that its mere presence fills the game with negative feelings, while the implementation would actually be much less objectionable if it just released in its current (or a tweaked version of current) state?

Absolutely, infact I think even the current state would have been accompanied with negativity and that Missouri should have been available through normal methods of purchase like other t9 premiums and that the web event should have awarded a commemorative permacamo and flag. Instead the event is a celebration of how much money WG believes they can demand for this ship. We should never have had to argue against the original iteration because it should not reasonably have been considered as an offering. That it was even considered shows, at best, a grave misjudgement on the part of WG, or worse; how little restraint they have over their own greed and schemes for exploitation.

[TMM01]

I like playing the game and for that reason  i will only spend money on a premium account monthly now and nothing else. Our filling all the Survey's obviously mean very little to wg. To little to late for me. Sorry.

[Nitin_Pookat_2020]

Its Just too late,

This game has lost all respect. Each time you guys come with outrageous schemes and ships. CVs were already a disgrace to the game and now you guys bring in Prussian CV's which are way too powerful, do the developers smoke week when creating and testing stuff ? Cant they even understand what a balanced game play is. Seriously guys i have no idea what your agenda is, take every one money and make the game more crap ?

 

 

[Ghesthar]

8 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

I mean, if someone plans to murder you and someone else convinces them otherwise, wouldn't you still be concerned about the fact they intended to do that in the first place?

I think there is a balance here, and I just don't think 'the community' or 'ccs' are getting it right.

 

If we push back and see a change, we should probably say 'thank you'. If we then see the same mistake/bad act repeated, maybe we burn crap down. I know that there is a current narative of "wg does the same thing over and over," but I'm not sure how warranted it is: the dockyard is an example I keep going back to, the christmas crates haven't (yet?) repeated, they are trying to improve communication, etc.

 

It feels to me like there is a passive-aggressive wronged spouse thing going on, where people reach as far back as they can remember for every slight, even those that have been resolved in their favour, and use the original wrong as a club to win an argument two years later, PR being the real key example to me. Being concerned about the fact that they were going to do it in the first place is completely reasonable. If you say "don't do that," and they don't do that, acting like they did that isn't really reasonable. I suppose if they replaced the boxes with the missions/direct purchase this would alleviate the complaint more than leaving the boxes in place, but if there is a direct purchase option and someone still opts for the 3-4x price gambling-adjacent option, I kind of don't know what to say.

 

8 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Is it? Or are todays standards just too high?

This could, obviously, go either way.

 

Another question I don't have the answer to, though: have dub prices ever changed? The price of most things increases with inflation, has the real money:dub rate changed alongside that, or has the dub cost of objects increased to make up that gap instead?

 

Back to your question, it is reasonable to say it is a bit of both. However, for ingame purchases, I'll go back to the availability of resources: 750,000 fxp just isn't a big deal to an ever-increasing number of players, there are bucks of even the 'special' economic signals floating around that mean 25000 fxp off a single game is doable, etc. So, I think the original price by today's standard IS simply too low. That doesn't make today's price reasonable, but I can't really imagine any chase ship coming in at 750,000 fxp now - even the 1m ones are starting to feel kind of sad and power crept or very niche just because of game evolution, and there don't seem to be a lot of new things being released at that price point.

 

8 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

This seems like an incredibly long way to address your question of determining which are overload and which are monetization, when the answer is that almost everything contributes to both just by being one or the other.

I can see the argument, and yet again, I agree with the overload aspect. I still find the 'aggressive monetization' aspect very tenuous.

 

What I'm trying to get at with this isn't a list or being convinced that the monetization is aggressive, or something. What I am trying to tease out is: what would need to change to make monetization NOT feel aggressive? Basically, I think 'aggressive monetization' as a stated problem implies far more... well.. monetization.. than there looks to be in the way you've enumerated the complaint, and especially when high cost/low value (but not grindy) offerings are thrown into the mix.

 

So, what would need to change to make it NOT feel like aggressive monetization? Would reducing the event overload without changing any models just make the game feel more relaxed and okay? Would leaving the number of events as-is, but reducing or removing the number of monetization streams feel better (eg. early-access events where there is only a mission chain without a lootbox mechanic/economy tied in)? I think trying to eliminate or reduce most monetization streams will result in them coming back in some other form (pushing back too hard on lootboxes may end up with more 'pay to progress' mechanics, eg) but if we could reduce or eliminate on relatively narrow area 'cost free,' which would it be, and how far would that go to fixing the 'aggressive monetization' perception?

 

8 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Campaigns (premium) - some limited time campaigns required money to unlock or progress

I don't remember these? I know this is a monetization method used in some games, but I really don't recall this ever appearing in wows? Was there some precursor dockyard event that I missed that used this model?

[Benser33]

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

If we push back and see a change, we should probably say 'thank you'.

Thank you for not murdering me.

...you won't try again in the future though, right?

 

But in all seriousness, yes, we should be thankful that WG are willing to at least be reactive to the criticism they receive even if they can seem to repeatedly fail to proactively avoid mistakes, but not so much thankful towards WG but the community, players and CMs both, for getting that message across. But it seems like every time they say they will learn from their mistakes what they really mean is they will come up with a new scheme to try to exploit people with. WG need to prove at some point that they can come up with an idea that doesn't provoke an uproar from the start, they appear intent on pushing the limits of what they can get away with with every idea. I personally won't be thankful for them agreeing to upgrade to the minimum we should be willing to accept and I am cinical of the fact that even tried it in the first place.

 

It also makes a lot of the good that WG do seem less like generousity and more like distraction, subterfuge, more psychological games than actual meritous behaviour.

 

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

I suppose if they replaced the boxes with the missions/direct purchase this would alleviate the complaint more than leaving the boxes in place, but if there is a direct purchase option and someone still opts for the 3-4x price gambling-adjacent option, I kind of don't know what to say.

You still have to unlock the direct purchase option and it's available for a limited time, so if you don't do that in time then gambling is your available option. Away from home for work? Working overtime? PC issues? New baby? Only play at weekends? Maybe just don't even have IJN/US ships and CVs, etc? Too bad I guess.

 

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

Another question I don't have the answer to, though: have dub prices ever changed? The price of most things increases with inflation, has the real money:dub rate changed alongside that, or has the dub cost of objects increased to make up that gap instead?

The amount I've paid in GBP per dub has changed radically over the last few years. It is currently the lowest it has ever been. Dubs:£ in 2015 was about 340:1, in 2019 it was 290:1, it is currently 360:1.

 

The amount of money needed to buy things hasn't really changed either, t8 premium cruiser Prinz Eugen from 2016, 11,000 dubs. t8 premium cruiser Congress from last month, 11,000 dubs.

But back in 2016 we didn't have £55 tier 9 premiums and £150 packs for a premium Yamato or two events with up to 90k dubloons worth of junk to hide exclusive content.

 

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

Back to your question, it is reasonable to say it is a bit of both. However, for ingame purchases, I'll go back to the availability of resources: 750,000 fxp just isn't a big deal to an ever-increasing number of players, there are bucks of even the 'special' economic signals floating around that mean 25000 fxp off a single game is doable, etc. So, I think the original price by today's standard IS simply too low. That doesn't make today's price reasonable, but I can't really imagine any chase ship coming in at 750,000 fxp now - even the 1m ones are starting to feel kind of sad and power crept or very niche just because of game evolution, and there don't seem to be a lot of new things being released at that price point.

This brings up the point of currencies. Back in 2016 750k free exp was not an amount a lot of players had really accumulated. Back then, we didn't even have special signals. Some players complained the price was too high, but this was somewhat overlooking the fact that that was the point, a resource sink.

 

Then WG added a few little bits and pieces to supplement peoples income of FXP, which made some people feel a bit better about it.

And although players had more FXP to use, the amount of FXP players needed increased as well. 750k, 1m, 2m.

And then they added Coal. And again, people complained that coal ships were too expensive. So they added more ways to get coal, which made some people feel a bit better about it.

And although players had more coal to use, the amount of coal players needed increased as well. Ships, commanders, upgrades, consumables.

And then they added Steel. And people complained Steel was too hard to get, Steel ships were so expensive and meta changing. So, they reworked ranked, made Steel a luxury rewarded by certain events in small amounts as compensation for excess spending.

And then they removed the cheaper Steel ships.

 

750k FXP doesn't sound like a lot by todays standard, but it's a lot easier to get than it used to be. Nowadays you can't get t9-10 premiums with 750k FXP, you have to use 230-250k coal, 30-40k steel, 1-2m fxp or £55+

I wouldn't expect Missouri to have popped up for 750k FXP. That would have been uncharacteristically generous. But I think that selling it normally like other tier 9 shop premiums, no strings, just 19k dubs, would have been perfectly reasonable.

 

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

What I'm trying to get at with this isn't a list or being convinced that the monetization is aggressive, or something... and how far would that go to fixing the 'aggressive monetization' perception? 

• They could slow things down for a start, there doesn't need to be three special events running continously at all times. Give people more time, recently we used to get like 2 days between patches where there were no events, now events span 2 or 3 patches of gated content offering no release.
• Giving people better options than relying on random bundles. A lot of people will just straight up buy things when presented for sale. Not sure why it's necessary to stretch into the realms of indeterminate gambling when more people would likely buy things and feel content than either avoid taking the risk or take a chance on being disappointed. Even if they still offer the randomness, it could at least be a better value offering alongside a straight purchase for people who would rather not take their chances.
• Certain content like ships should simply never be offered in a form of unlimited chance, players who want to buy them should be able to just buy them.
• Containers should include odds so that players make a more informed decision. If what they offer is good value this wouldn't hurt sales.
• Locking content behind chains of bundles is also an attempt to incite more spending than necessary and we would be better off without.

Some of these things they have promised to address in their message, but much of what they really offered to do is not impactful to that strategy. How far would it go? What is WG even willing to really concede?

 

There is no really correct answer, if they really are profiting from exploitations and manipulation, by giving limited options for spending, forcing gambling-like transactions, denying player opportunities ingame then anything they do to fix things is going to be a loss. Whether they consider their approach more sustainable than cultivating a broader, more generally satisfied playerbase is for them to really determine, they would know better than us. They could get away with some of what they attempt and they are free to try but when they get called out on it to such a degree it is clear they are threatening too great a spectrum of the playerbase.

 

Perhaps they simply maintain the status quo as is, wait some time and hope that the new normal is accepted, that people forget about those times WG genuinely thought they could demand up to £280 for a tier 9 premium.

 

6 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

I don't remember these? I know this is a monetization method used in some games, but I really don't recall this ever appearing in wows? Was there some precursor dockyard event that I missed that used this model?

New Year 2018 came with the offering of steel as an end of year reward. Of course, none of it was free.

There was a new year event campaign that awarded steel which had to be purchased and completed to earn the steel, though it was limited time, which a lot of people also didnt like, the time frame was 6 months.

It also had a combat chain that awarded steel which could only be completed by people that purchased the free T6 premium BB Prinz Eitel Friedrich (people that got the free one from the campaign would get it after the chain expired)
Another combat chain awarding even more steel was also purchasable in a bundle.

There was steel available in the free campaign as well, the one which gave PEF for free, so there was steel available for the majority as promised, but still a lot of players were dismayed to find the lions share was locked behind payments.

[garfield06061991]

En 2/9/2021 en 16:00, Crysantos dijo:

Dear players,

 

Lately a lot of you have been upset with various incidents, our decisions, as well as a general state of things in the game and community. Before we continue, we want to apologize to all of you, players, content creators, moderators, testers, and other volunteers, to those who support us and those disappointed with us. Everything that happens within the game and the community is our responsibility, and we are sorry that we let the situation come to its current state. 

We want to take this opportunity to be more transparent about how we will take actions to improve our internal processes and our relationship with you. It will be a long read, you will see items of different scales and with different times required to see results. No doubt more news and announcements will follow, so please don't treat this as a final plan and the ultimate solution to everything. Instead, please treat it as a list of things we're currently working on and a way to show our intentions to make the game and community a better place. Also, please note that it is not comprehensive, as many other measures are revolving around internal processes.

Monetization

World of Warships is a free-to-play title following the game-as-a-service concept with substantial monthly updates and a constant evolutionary cycle. To support this model we rely on a multitude of monetization tactics considered to be standard practice in the industry. While we believe it's unreasonable to expect to discuss our monetization strategies in all but the most general terms - this is business-critical information - we do understand that there are specific details that are a cause of concern for some of you. We will address them as best we can below.

• Random mechanics. As a business, we always follow laws and comply with new regulations as they appear. Therefore, our position on containers and random bundles is always consistent with governments' decisions on this matter and will keep being so. In some cases, we will even try to work ahead of industry practices. We are aware that there are slowly progressing trends to regulate the digital space more and more, to catch up with technical solutions and business models built on them. With that in mind, we appreciate your feedback and commit to the following: from now on for all new ships, if they are distributed via Containers or Random Bundles, there will be an alternative way to obtain them. Methods may vary and may include timegating (i.e. early access or time delayed offers), direct purchases, completing in-game activities, etc. 
• Drop rates. We plan to publish all drop rates for all Containers and Random Bundles and are already working on it. It will take some time, but our hard commitment is that it will happen over the course of next year.
• Return of Missouri. The initial concept of the event was perceived negatively, and we should have known better. The case was a learned lesson for us and we added an alternative way to purchase the ship. We're also addressing the situation with the ship's earnings to make sure that those who owned Missouri before 0.10.7 will on average receive not less credits than before the changes to the ship's economics. We're grateful for the battles you played, these helped us to collect sufficient data. This amount of data allows us to add a +10% bonus to the special Missouri combat mission (from 20% to 30%). Additionally, we will issue appropriate amount of credits to all the affected players as a sign of appreciation; details will be published in Devblog separately.
• Summer Sale. Unfortunately, we made a translation mistake in a sensitive description. We fixed it ASAP and to protect you from such mistakes in the future, we will add additional checks and approvals to our internal processes. If anything like that happens again, we will offer refunds to all of the affected players. We did it before and we will do it again to make sure that you are compensated. We will also pay more attention to the positioning of such events: for example, many of you stated the term "Sale" suggests direct discounts on in-game items.
• Age ratings. We've already added disclaimers about in-game purchases with random items to our PEGI ratings. We're also in touch with other rating organizations to adjust our ratings everywhere in a consistent way. While our game was never popular among minors and we adhere to legislation in all countries where we publish World of Warships, we plan to go beyond what is required of us by laws and we are working on our own in-game measures to additionally protect children who interact with our game. We will share more details on this point once we're ready to announce them.

Feedback

One of the main topics we want to address is how your feedback influences the game. Regrettably, it was not always clear how we use certain types of feedback and where it fits into our decision-making process. We've always taken it into account, but looking back, we see that in some cases it was not balanced well enough against other equally important sources of information: large volumes of data and the team's creative vision of the game. We want to change this situation and make sure we pay more direct attention to your suggestions and opinions while also giving you more insight into how the decisions are made. Things we are considering and evaluating right now:

• More reaction to feedback on ships balance. We know there are several ships you want to be addressed, and we'd like to confirm: balance changes are planned for Zao, Petropavlovsk, and FDR in 0.10.10. Moving forward we will try to increase the promptness of addressing released ships in a similar way and when it is not possible (for example, changing a ship will move it out of the interval of normal performance), we will put more effort into giving you insights and explaining our reasoning.
• Aircraft Carriers. Despite many other things happening in the game, we haven't forgotten that there are still questions to be answered regarding CVs. We've implemented a lot of changes to this class since the rework, but we acknowledge more changes may be needed. CV spotting is a good example - we conducted several tests before and did not find a good, adequate way to address it. That does not mean we will not continue to improve it. It's not something that can be done quickly, please keep that in mind. Another common question is regarding odd-tier carriers, which were previously mentioned as "support CVs". Right now they are in an early prototyping stage (developing document concepts), and we want to honestly tell you that they are not to be expected in 2022.
• New gameplay experiences. We will keep evolving the game by introducing new game modes and mechanics, both fiction- and history-based. For example, in 0.10.8 we will have a new mode - Convoys - inspired by historical events. We will keep exploring new game modes in the future, - it's one of our priorities. Expanding permanent types of battles (primarily Random battles) with new modes is also one of the long-term goals to keep the game fresh and entertaining. However creating a mode suitable not just for a short gaming period, but for a permanent presence with high replayability is a much bigger challenge, so it takes many more tries and effort. 
• Maps. We've slowed down with adding new maps to the game recently because the team focused more on the game's visuals in general (updated visual effects, new water, and other improvements) as well as introducing a whole new level of underwater world. That said, in 2022 at least one new map will be released, and another one has some chances to make it in time. Spoiler: we're also going to try a new mechanic with the first of these new maps not previously used in the game.
• Operations. CV rework rendered a lot of AI-related internal tools obsolete and made working with AI-aircraft-related stuff very difficult or impossible. Right now we're in the process of removing this obstacle. It's being worked on for many reasons, not just for the sake of Operations, but one of the benefits we will have when this project is done is that we will be able to return some of the old Operations in 2022.
• Other. There are plenty of other things we know you're interested in, and quite a lot of them are being worked on in different stages of development. We haven't forgotten about things such as secondary builds for cruisers, the update of some old ship models, Tier IV CV tuning, Huron (coming 2022), West Virginia'44 (coming 2023), addressing the chat system, improvements for Ranked Battles, and many other small and not so small changes to the game that will make your experience with it better.

Communications

We are a large, distributed team of over 500 people working across more than 4 countries. Coming from all walks of life, culturally varied and hindered severely by the pandemic from travelling to see each other in person to be able to align on certain matters, we are bound to have organizational challenges in the realm of communication. However, these internal challenges should not be visible, much less influence the player experience. Improving communications is a never-ending process which needs to be evolutionary and not revolutionary, so you will see those improvements incrementally over time in many areas, rather than as a one-time institutional overnight change. But we want to address a few specific points you pointed out in this area.

• Community Contributor Program. When we created our CCTP, our goal was to help talented folks interested in our game create content and grow their channels. Right now it's clear that a lot of things in the Program do not work as they should, which leads to frustration and failed expectations even though some other parts are running well. We will update the Program, both in terms of rules and the way we work with it internally. We expect to have some sort of internal plan and first action points ready in the second half of September, and then proceed with the changes during this Autumn.
• Future of the game. We'd like to offer you a deeper look into the future of the game. Right now we have Devblogs (where we basically announce everything that comes to Supertest) and the Waterline series (quarterly updates). To complement these and expand the horizon of events, we want to share a general roadmap with you, of what you can expect to see in World of Warships in the far future. It will give you an idea of what we want to focus on - but please keep in mind that things can and will change. At the same time, we want to show the progress World of Warships achieves. The game evolves a lot each year and it will make it easier for you to follow what we are doing.
• Communications quality. There have been a lot of communication mistakes and incidents on our side recently. While mistakes always happen and we're all human, we acknowledge that we need to improve in this area. We've already launched a full internal review of all related processes. We want fewer mistakes and translation errors, more answers, and productive conversations. We want to improve the way you interact with us in any place, be it Forums, Customer support, Discord servers or official streams. 
• General transparency. We need to work hard on it: on the one hand, we need to pay more attention to the community sentiment, on the other hand, we have to be more transparent and explain our positions. We will create a series of publications to make our development process more transparent and to show the logic behind what we do. For example, players did not understand why the latest torpedo bug took 2 updates to fix, while a CV bug (plane losses in 0.9.9) was fixed almost instantly. They are in fact very different: the CV bug was fixed by quickly adjusting some parameters, while the torpedo bug involved game logic, and even though it was technically fixed within a week, it had to go through all regular quality assurance processes. Deploying such change through a hotfix is extremely risky for the game. This should have been communicated transparently and we will do our best to do so in the future.
• In-depth communications and insights. When it's necessary we will use more specifics and will provide deeper explanations of our decisions. For example, we implemented the system for CvC ship bans, which helps us to keep the meta fresh, and we want to tell you more about how and why we use it, as it's something that our hardcore players are interested in.

 

All of it is just our current, first plan. We will keep looking for other points of interest and challenges. We want to show you our responsibility, care and desire for the game by the way we communicate and through our actions - to make the game better for everyone.

 

A final word on passion and communication. While we are working hard to improve the way we communicate and interact with you, we want to take a moment to address your passion and the way that we communicate with each other. We know that you care about the game a great deal and ask you to remember that there are people - community managers, support staff, developers and volunteers - that read your communications and posts, wherever they may be made. While we as a company certainly need to work on the way we communicate with you, we ask that you treat the people you interact with fairly and with respect. Your voice will carry as much – or more – weight with them if you present your feedback and opinions in a reasoned and constructive way.

 

Yours sincerely,

Victor Bardovsky, Publishing Director

Andrey Lisak, Development Director

World of Warships Team

when are you going to remove the blacklists in the game? When are you going to stop hurting players in matchmaking if they answer negatively to the polls? When are you going to put up a proper pairing and without harming the players? And when are you going to remove the favorable match if you buy in the store?

 

 

 

 

 

[Ghesthar]

14 minutes ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

You still have to unlock the direct purchase option and it's available for a limited time, so if you don't do that in time then gambling is your available option. Away from home for work? Working overtime? PC issues? New baby? Only play at weekends? Maybe just don't even have IJN/US ships and CVs, etc? Too bad I guess.

But what does this mean? Everyone should be able to do and get everything no matter what?

 

It should not, obviously, have released in the 'only gambleboxes' state, but I'm not really sure I buy into 'having a trivial mission requirement is terrible, too' line of thinking. I mean, if I'm working and can't do ranked enough to get all the 'free' stuff, is this a huge problem, or do I just have to manage my own life, and sometimes that means I can't do everything that I want to in relatively low priority activities?

 

16 minutes ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Thank you for not murdering me.

...you won't try again in the future though, right?

As I said, there is a balance. I don't think the balance is currently correct. You might. I'm not sure there is a 'right' answer. If there were lots of events lots of events like PR or the missouri thing, I would probably agree more, but I'm not sure that there are - if they come back in another development cycle with another unique ship that they want to be lootbox-only at absurd cost, then I'm obviously wrong. However, I'll keep pointing at things like dockyards, devblogs, this post, and the missouri event changes: it isn't perfect, by any means, but it is all movement in the right direction.

 

To some extent, of course they will try to come up with new ways to monetize things: that is literally their job. That is why the game exists. It only exists to amuse people like you or I insofar as it gets us to pay them occasionally. They have, without a doubt, overstepped a few times in rapid succession, which has led to this. I'm just not sure I can get behind 'please don't murder me' as a metaphor, when the real complaint is 'that is way too [edited]expensive' - WGs missteps haven't caused harm to anyone who just opts to not engage with them, unlike someone plotting to murder you.

 

24 minutes ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

There is no really correct answer, if they really are profiting from exploitations and manipulation, by giving limited options for spending, forcing gambling-like transactions, denying player opportunities ingame then anything they do to fix things is going to be a loss.

Isn't this how free to play games operate, though? An utter lack of player 'need' is, sadly, a bad business model?

 

It really sounds like the majority of what you would want to see HAS been promised? They do seem to be moving in a 'no gamble exclusive' ships direction... though maybe with some time preference issue - if all the information were know 'up front,' would Agincourt in lootboxes, and then in shop for direct purchase a few months later be an issue? Ditto Missouri (ignoring the horrible pricing) - if they put out lootboxes and direct purchase in two weeks, with this being the intent, would this be an issue? The lootboxes are, obviously, a trap for those with very 'immediate' time preferences, but assuming everything were 'above board' and communicated, is variable pricing based on other preferences a problem, or tolerable?

 

I think the only part of what your list they haven't touched on at all is the sequential bundling, which I can see the objection to, but I'm not sure I agree with, entirely - bundling (which is what it effectively is) is 'par for course' across industries, not even just in f2p games. It isn't 'nice,' but it is 'normal'.

 

There is a bit of a question around 'less content,' though? I suppose for someone like you or I, who judging by this try to do 'everything' to at least some extent, there is just too much. What about people who actively do not participate in some piece of content? Like, if I didn't touch ranked ever, or CBs, would I then 'miss' the lack of other events ticking over quickly? Going back to your earlier thing about everyone being in the same community, are there players who play operations or coop or randoms exclusively, for whom the quantity of content (ignoring value/monetization entirely) is about right, or even too low? Again, I don't know the answer, but coops are always instant queues, and there are people who seem to play ops to the exclusion of other content...

 

25 minutes ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

New Year 2018 came with the offering of steel as an end of year reward. Of course, none of it was free.

Fair enough, that was in the gap when I wasn't playing at all for a year and a half. I know there were some ships (Benham, Cossack, I think?) that were offered in dockyard/campaign things that I never saw, but I was unaware of the formats.

[Benser33]

4 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

But what does this mean? Everyone should be able to do and get everything no matter what?

It is available for everyone, just gamble for it. But the meaning is less about what the community deserves and what WG thinks the community deserves, which is apparent through their decision making.

The issue is that the direct purchase is not an alternative for everyone. How many people can take advantage of that will obviously vary, but by placing it behind a gameplay requirement they still manage to exclude an unnecessary (if small) percentage of the playerbase. Missouri, especially today and with it's reduced credit farming ability, is no longer a premium among premiums to demand such a commitment of time or money. Would it really have been so hard to just put it on sale?

 

Quote

It should not, obviously, have released in the 'only gambleboxes' state, but I'm not really sure I buy into 'having a trivial mission requirement is terrible, too' line of thinking. I mean, if I'm working and can't do ranked enough to get all the 'free' stuff, is this a huge problem, or do I just have to manage my own life, and sometimes that means I can't do everything that I want to in relatively low priority activities?

I would say normally you should have just a normal opportuntity to buy a ship if you wanted. You could grind the fairly simply missions instead of ranked (ignoring the time gating the missions, which are not all actually that trivial, 3 kills in one game can require some effort or luck). But the chance to buy it like a normal ship is denied.

 

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As I said, there is a balance. I don't think the balance is currently correct. You might. I'm not sure there is a 'right' answer. If there were lots of events lots of events like PR or the missouri thing, I would probably agree more, but I'm not sure that there are - if they come back in another development cycle with another unique ship that they want to be lootbox-only at absurd cost, then I'm obviously wrong. However, I'll keep pointing at things like dockyards, devblogs, this post, and the missouri event changes: it isn't perfect, by any means, but it is all movement in the right direction.

Movements in the right direction, yeah. But we won't get where we want unless it stays that way for a while, because we've wandered off the path a fair bit here.

 

Although I can see that you don't really feel the same about WGs general conduct as most do and at this point I think the only way you will see is if you fall victim to it yourself.

 

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if they come back in another development cycle with another unique ship that they want to be lootbox-only at absurd cost

What, like the chinese new year ships? Lootbox only tier 9 premiums. But that's also fine behaviour if you just don't care about CNY ships, right?

 

Quote

To some extent, of course they will try to come up with new ways to monetize things: that is literally their job. That is why the game exists. It only exists to amuse people like you or I insofar as it gets us to pay them occasionally. They have, without a doubt, overstepped a few times in rapid succession, which has led to this. I'm just not sure I can get behind 'please don't murder me' as a metaphor, when the real complaint is 'that is way too [edited]expensive' - WGs missteps haven't caused harm to anyone who just opts to not engage with them, unlike someone plotting to murder you.

I would expect no less, but there exist varying degrees of this between an entirely free game and a game where you pay for everything. "overstepping a few times in rapid succession" is really a very generous way of saying incrementally escalating over a period of years.

 

And complaints are not just "that is too expensive" but also "that is too time consuming" and "no normal human can do all of these things" and "why do you release things so quickly that we're forced to decide between what we want to do" and "why do you add events that require a reasonably small monetary investment to make the most of and then add a bunch of other stuff that I also have to buy or miss out on" and "why is there no sure way of obtaining this thing?".

 

Please don't murder me is indeed a metaphor, and perhaps not an appropriate one, so let's be literal.

 

Please stop trying to work out how to exploit every spare penny and second from every member of the community. I've said this before but I'll say it again, just because we convinced them not to go ahead with one of their stupidest schemes so far doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about why they did it in the first place.

 

Imagine if they set themselves a revenue target for the year and this event was part of the expectation to meet that target, if we have caused them to change their delivery of this event that doesn't mean they won't try to implement something later that tries to wrench the same money from the community to reach that target. So our concern is not what they plan to do with this one event, and I sure as heck won't thank them for going back on it, our concern is why they would set themselves such a target, as if the playerbase deserves to be subjected to such attempts.

 

Quote

Isn't this how free to play games operate, though? An utter lack of player 'need' is, sadly, a bad business model?

Well of course, I expect no less than WG to aim to earn revenue. I have no issue with that. But an "utter" lack is again looking at things quite black and white. Players will always lack something, the games lifecycle is upon progression, it's not a matter of players being denied everything (which isn't true) and having everything for free (which isn't realistic). There's a happy medium somewhere inbetween, where the vast majority of players can invest their time and their money into the things they want, and we are not there right now.

 

Noisey and discontent playerbases are a bad business model.

 

Quote

It really sounds like the majority of what you would want to see HAS been promised?

• Slow things down - no mention, they expressed a desire to share a roadmap, but no sign of relenting
• Less gambling - no mention, age rating is something but that doesn't reduce its presence in the game, the specific ratings have to bearing on gambling and even if they did age ratings do nothing to protect the adults
• Method of obtaining - a promise of providing alternatives, what alternatives? "If ships are distributed via containers or random bundles there will be an alternative" so they explicitely state they will continue to release ships that are available via containers but alongside an undefined alternative. In the same letter they talk about how they learned their lesson with Missouri and added an alternative. But again designed to be just that little more difficult to obtain by adding that one time requirement
• Containers odds - promised, even if it takes a while to implement this is one of the few things they really said that was valuable
• Locking content behind chains of bundles - no mention

They promise so little that really changes the grand circumstances that it shouldn't be difficult for them to just shift the weight of a few other things to compensate and weigh the game down elsewhere.

 

Quote

They do seem to be moving in a 'no gamble exclusive' ships direction... though maybe with some time preference issue - if all the information were know 'up front,' would Agincourt in lootboxes, and then in shop for direct purchase a few months later be an issue? Ditto Missouri (ignoring the horrible pricing) - if they put out lootboxes and direct purchase in two weeks, with this being the intent, would this be an issue? The lootboxes are, obviously, a trap for those with very 'immediate' time preferences, but assuming everything were 'above board' and communicated, is variable pricing based on other preferences a problem, or tolerable?

It would be an improvement. That is assuming that rates were also declared and were not unreasonable, but that is really something to be determined case by case. But I still feel like putting them up for direct sale or with the direct sale price declared at the same time would seem a lot more like a move of good faith, because people that gamble on containers (depending on the value and average cost to obtain) may find themselves pretty annoyed when a ship does release for direct purchase months later for potentially much less than they would have spent gambling.

 

I believe that the community in general would be a lot more content if they didn't have to speak up about every event in the first place to get fair and reasonable events.

 

Quote

I think the only part of what your list they haven't touched on at all is the sequential bundling, which I can see the objection to, but I'm not sure I agree with, entirely - bundling (which is what it effectively is) is 'par for course' across industries, not even just in f2p games. It isn't 'nice,' but it is 'normal'.

Bundles are fine. Some are even good.

Chains of bundles are not so fine, exponentially "more expensive but better value" bundles are just another example of using addictive psychology. The more you buy, the more you feel inclined to buy more... Which is a human rational they are free to take advantage of (since there is no regulation against it) but there are certainly more... honest ways to structure transaction options (since the main way to avoid this cognitive bias is simply being aware that it exists).

 

Quote

There is a bit of a question around 'less content,' though? I suppose for someone like you or I, who judging by this try to do 'everything' to at least some extent, there is just too much. What about people who actively do not participate in some piece of content? Like, if I didn't touch ranked ever, or CBs, would I then 'miss' the lack of other events ticking over quickly? Going back to your earlier thing about everyone being in the same community, are there players who play operations or coop or randoms exclusively, for whom the quantity of content (ignoring value/monetization entirely) is about right, or even too low? Again, I don't know the answer, but coops are always instant queues, and there are people who seem to play ops to the exclusion of other content...

This is what makes it difficult to get a shared concensus of. But, even when we look at the groups that do play modes like operations or coop exclusively, operations have only lost content over the last few years with multiple scenarios removed and the only update being the announcement that all development of scenarios had ceased for the foreseeable future. Coop mode already suffers greatly reduced income, was used as a test area for submarines (much to the annoyance of some players) and can't complete certain missions and campaigns. You could certainly argue that these two groups might not have enough content (scenarios certainly, coop players have their "content" dragged out by needing much long to research normal tech tree lines.

 

But, players who are content with less I suppose have nothing to complain about. People that truly don't participate in anything else are not really affected by the things that WG do, they are neither a benefit to WG nor to the rest of the community, it doesn't really impact how the rest of the community is treated, unless these players pay for themselves with premium acct/camo/ships to take into battle. Doesn't change the fact that on the opposite end of the scale expectations and requirements are very high.

[General_Regret]

On 9/5/2021 at 2:45 PM, Crysantos said:

Let's say we made a public survey, e.g. in the game and then published the result - let's say it would support what we say... would you change your mind?

The only reason you would even dare to attempt this facetious thought experiment in a lazy effort to discredit the speaker is that you have the certain knowledge on your side that this company would never even consider any such poll/survey and it hence wouldn't come back to bite you in the buttocks later. Maybe in no small part because they have an inkling of what the response would be, seeing as you yourself refer to his as "popular opinion". If they were so certain that the facts would speak in their favour, they could just hold one such poll/survey, maybe even on social media rather than ingame to preempt any potential accusations of data manipulation, and then let the "many" players that apparently support WG's decisions show themselves? I'm sure they're planning to have one some time in 2022-23, maybe around the time they'll finally manage to fix torpedoes.

[CensorMeDaddyWG]

On 9/5/2021 at 2:45 PM, Crysantos said:

Let's say we made a public survey, e.g. in the game and then published the result - let's say it would support what we say... would you change your mind? Would you change your position and say - please go ahead, the majority wants it, so I'll live with it?

 

 

No. For 2 reasons. The first, polls on the internet are, in general, a bad idea. It is far to easy to vote with bot accounts, especially in an unlimited access environment, like this one. Check Internet Historians 'Every poll is a goal' video. +

 

And second, I don't trust WarGaming as a company to not manipulate the poll to desired results. With all the broken promises and blatant lies and WarGamings tendency to cherrypick data to determine what works and what doesn't work(Zao is good because it has many battles played, hum?), I've lost all faith in you as a company. 

[ihan_paras_nimi]

On 9/2/2021 at 5:00 PM, Crysantos said:

• General transparency. We need to work hard on it: on the one hand, we need to pay more attention to the community sentiment, on the other hand, we have to be more transparent and explain our positions. We will create a series of publications to make our development process more transparent and to show the logic behind what we do. For example, players did not understand why the latest torpedo bug took 2 updates to fix, while a CV bug (plane losses in 0.9.9) was fixed almost instantly. They are in fact very different: the CV bug was fixed by quickly adjusting some parameters, while the torpedo bug involved game logic, and even though it was technically fixed within a week, it had to go through all regular quality assurance processes. Deploying such change through a hotfix is extremely risky for the game. This should have been communicated transparently and we will do our best to do so in the future.

This aged well. It took only 10 days to prove the level of "quality assurance processes"

[Drpepper_123]

My bullsh!t detector just exploded with the amount of bullsh!t it detected from this post.

[Miragetank90]

Do you think you guys have a lower approval rating right now than Sleepy Joes'?