Some interesting info around the world

[LilJumpa]

Thx for your effort Carnotzet. I just opened a thread in the german sections where I will quote your Q&As and maybe translate some parts of it if you don't mind.

[Takru]

Thx for your effort Carnotzet. I just opened a thread in the german sections where I will quote your Q&As and maybe translate some parts of it if you don't mind.

 

Will translate to German when I'm home, might take a few hours, though.

[Carnotzet]

Next Q&A. Source

 

Q. On Ishizuchi, lifeboats prevent the middle turret to fire at some angles, it can barely fire at all. Do you plan to fix the models of ships like this one that have a lower performance because of visual elements?

A. We'll make sure to look at problems with lifeboats. It was already fixed on several ships: if they impede the ability to fire, we'll remove them.

 

Q. Suggestion regarding captain retraining. We all know how long it takes to retrain a captain with a lot of skill points. Why aren't the skills gradually unlocked? At the rate at which they first unlocked them?

A. Instant retraining is a paid service. Paid services are needed for the game to continue to run and for developing new features. Thus, it's very unlikely the retraining feature will change considerably.

 

Q. Today, I found myself in the following situation. My rudder was destroyed and I sailed right against an island and sunk....on the beach, my ship clipping through the land texture. Could you make ships remain on land when destroyed? For realism and the beauty of it?

A. We plan to add something like that but it's not high on the priority list. It's quite possible that, someday, we'll be able to admire the charred remains of a destroyed warship lying on a golden beach while wondering about the meaning of life.

 

Q. Do you consider lowering the requirements for the "Clear Sky" ribbon?

Currently, it's nearly impossible to earn it without playing with an air superiority CV. For instance, 2 IJN CV's (tier 6 and 7) = 120 planes + 5-6 on cruisers and BB's. I can't think of a way an AA oriented cruiser can shoot down 64 planes. Maybe if they all fly above it but it still will have to wait for defensive fire to recharge.

A. The requirements are not easy to meet but if a player has an oriented AA ship and there's only one CV, the requirements can be met. In addition, not all achievements should be easily "farmed". We currently don't plan to change it.

 

Q. Do you plan to give New York its famous AA setup back? Or should I sell the ship?

A. In the following month and a half, we plan to improve the AA on some ships, including New York. Stay tuned.

 

Q. In 0.5.3.2 patch notes, Benson was supposed to receive a permanent cammo. Where is it?

A. It is currently in "reserve". It's an oversight. 

 

Q. Please explain how will personal offer work?

A. The concept behind personal offers is the following:

1. They will appear after the player has done a certain action.

2. We don't plan to "spam" offers.

3. They will include things like unique ships, invitations to private test drives, or training lessons.

4. Naturally, we will not disclose technical details on how these offers appear (to whom or in what circumstances).

 

Q. We're often told that regular TKers are banned. But, in my experience, the TK system barely works. Sometimes, a player damages a teammate for 50k damage and he doesn't even turn pink. What is taken into account in flagging somebody as a TK (damage, kills, etc)?

A. It's determined by unsporting behaviour, which means no other statistics are taken into account.

Here are the details: the current system is rather permissive. When we implemented it, it was intended for new players who committed all sorts of bad things because of their inexperience. And it worked quite well on them; it wasn't excessively punishing. Now, we're experiencing another phenomenon - "professional" trolls. Whether they get a 3 day or 30 day ban, they don't care.

That is why we plan to modify the system as to separate this kind of people from the normal players. When we'll receive the "go" to release the final version, we'll tell you more about it.

 

Q. 1. Why have you decided to cancel the test drive for new lines (for instance Soviet DD's)?

2. Did the event not meet your expectations?

3. Do you plan to do it again for Soviet cruisers?

A. We decided to cancel test drives because of the negative feedback we received from players. Players had mixed feelings for not being able to have upgraded ships and had the feeling that, in the end, we were "taking their ships away". Thus the effort is not worth the negative reaction it gets. We don't plan to bring back public test drives in the near future. We may add individual test drives though.

 

[Sonic_157]

 

Excellent info and excellent work and effort as always!

 

So, no test drives, AA changes (again) and the "offer" system sounds interesting.

 

Also, where is the camo for my Benson!

 

 

 

[Trigger_Happy_Dad]

Thx a lot for all the work to keep us informed! 

 

Excellent stuff! 

 

[Earl_of_Northesk]

 

Any idea what he might have in mind? Changing their stats as in... trade better guns for worse Camo / longer Torp reload time for example?

 

An Asian Q&A mentioned they are thinking about nerfing their concealment. Probably a good idea, since the main reason japanese DD's are fine below T8 is the fact they have to ride on a razors edge, it's challenging, but very rewarding if executed perfectly. I think they should have done that in the first place instead of "inventing" radar.

[Unintentional_submarine]

So 'lifeboats' shouldn't impede guns? Don't they feature massively on the Arkansas Beta like that? Overall that answer is not one I'm terribly impressed by. Looking at various ships AA guns stand in the way of main guns. I can off the top of my head mention New York, Admiral Hipper and notably North Carolina.

But I suppose they can't just say "well, we consider doodads and boats to be integral, so we decided that the ships are better off with limited arcs."

 

Wrecks on shallow water. Nice, but too far off that I won't be hyped.

 

Clear Sky considered ok... Not much to say, other than it is a bit silly.

 

Captain retraining not changing massively. Well, at least they don't deny the possibility of tweaks as retraining an 18 point captain requires more XP, even with the 50% reduction, than it takes to reach 18 points in the first place. Patently absurd.

 

Oh and many thanks Carnozet. I read every single translation. Even if the subject might not appeal to me, I eat it all up.

[Takru]

Clear skies... if only there was more information on how many planes are there in a single battle... I mean, you have a rough idea of much you need to do for most other awards, but clear skies? Nevermind that you sometimes depend on the CA and BBs to launch their planes in the first place...

[Takeda92]

 

Any idea what he might have in mind? Changing their stats as in... trade better guns for worse Camo / longer Torp reload time for example?

 

I think that just shows that WG only listen to the most vocal angry mobs. 

 

The problem with high tiers isn't that IJN DDs are OP. They were not buffed ever since closed beta. The meta has changed. Instead of fixing the gameplay, like making cruisers effectively counter DDs without the fear of being nuked by BBs, and by not making players scared to shitz of risky gameplay because they are too afraid of repair costs.

 

I said it once and I'll say it again. If there was 5 Shimakaze's and they all fired torps, then to you, they are unavoidable and you will get hit, but only the torps of one of those Shimas will hit. All the other 4 will miss. 

 

Looking at the past 2 weeks stats, Shimakaze seems very close to Khaba and at tier 9, Kagero barely deals 2k more damage than both the other DDs, and have lower winrate and frags. Fubuki is actually worse than Benson which is better than Fubuki in both randoms and ranked.

 

But to the majority of the playerbase, it doesn't matter. They just want less DDs at all costs. Hatsuharu is below average, for the last 2 weeks, it deals the same damage as Sims (yes, that SIms) and 2% lower winrate and lower frags. Harsuharu is the worst tier 7 DD at the moment.

[fnord_disc]

Yeah, I don't understand why they would nerf Japanese DDs. They're not too strong.

[fallenmemories]

The reason for the current destroyer population is the fact that they got too many buffs in so little time, they were over buffed. Supposedly this was a counter buff against radar. God knows why can't they implement changes when thier needed. Always early, always late, never on time.

[Takru]

Let's wait and see how Radar affects the gameplay. May be we'll have more news about the whole DD meta matter in a month or so.

[SBS]

Thanks for continuing to share this info! 

 

[Takeda92]

The reason for the current destroyer population is the fact that they got too many buffs in so little time, they were over buffed. Supposedly this was a counter buff against radar. God knows why can't they implement changes when thier needed. Always early, always late, never on time.

 

What buffs?

 

The torpedo detection that can be countered by mounting the Target Acquisition module, Torpedo Acceleration that is countered by a buff to the torpedo detection captain skill, or to moving last stand to tier 2, which doesn't affect high tier DDs anyway?

 

In fact, the reason we have this DD infestation is because the overreaction of the forums.

[Spellfire40]

Clear skies... if only there was more information on how many planes are there in a single battle... I mean, you have a rough idea of much you need to do for most other awards, but clear skies? Nevermind that you sometimes depend on the CA and BBs to launch their planes in the first place...

 

Depends what does count as planes. The max number? because as CA i seldom can lanch all my planes in one Battle because of cooldown.

[Trainspite]

Hatsuharu is below average, for the last 2 weeks, it deals the same damage as Sims (yes, that SIms) and 2% lower winrate and lower frags. Harsuharu is the worst tier 7 DD at the moment.

 

That could be because I just bought one.... 

[Spellfire40]

 

What buffs?

 

The torpedo detection that can be countered by mounting the Target Acquisition module, Torpedo Acceleration that is countered by a buff to the torpedo detection captain skill, or to moving last stand to tier 2, which doesn't affect high tier DDs anyway?

 

In fact, the reason we have this DD infestation is because the overreaction of the forums.

 

Depends moving last stand was nessesarry or Gunboat DDs couldnt get a T5 skill with both AFT and Last stand were at T4. The drawback for Torpedoboats is that you now need 17 Skillpoints instead of 15 to get the max benefits to Torpedos. Granted not a biggy for your 1st DD at max skill but for a reskilling keeper that will take quite some Time. Otherwise with the upcoming Radar I have to reskill my Fubuki with Gold because 12km Torps wont cut it when i have to keep my distance till Radar CAs are acounted for.

[Takeda92]

 

That could be because I just bought one.... 

 

Do you have a Karlsruhe too? 

[Trainspite]

 

Do you have a Karlsruhe too? 

 

Eh, I thought about it, and then I bought Myogi instead. 

Also, I could be to blame for Yubari, but my stats don't exactly line up with the average players...

 

Still, I think in 7 games I have hit 4 torpedoes or so, as that is what it feels like, but being a gunboat and pissing off an Colorado and hiding in smoke 6km from him is surprisingly effective!

[Carnotzet]

Just letting you know that I have my eyes on a big post regarding what interface improvements we can expect in the near future. It will come tomorrow alongside other news.

[Takeda92]

 

Still, I think in 7 games I have hit 4 torpedoes or so, as that is what it feels like, but being a gunboat and pissing off an Colorado and hiding in smoke 6km from him is surprisingly effective!

Seems like my experience with her as well.

 

 

[gr0pah]

Clear Sky considered ok... Not much to say, other than it is a bit silly.

 

Clear skies... if only there was more information on how many planes are there in a single battle... I mean, you have a rough idea of much you need to do for most other awards, but clear skies? Nevermind that you sometimes depend on the CA and BBs to launch their planes in the first place...

 

Depends what does count as planes. The max number? because as CA i seldom can lanch all my planes in one Battle because of cooldown.,

 

Clear Skies is indeed silly at the moment. I've played literally hundreds of CV-games since 0.5.3 and I've gotten one or zero Clear Skies. I'm not surprised my Strike Lex' doesn't get it (although the AA on it often shoots down ~30 sniping planes), but I've also run AS Hiryu for a good number of games with the express purpose of trying to get Clear Skies.

The by far highest chance to get the achievement is with - drum roll - AS Bogue. Oh yay, fun. It is also somewhat doable with AS Indy from what I hear. So instead of being somewhat attainable in a variety of CVs, the current mechanic actually actively encourages farming this achievement with the most boring (for your team, yourself and opponent CV) CV loadout in the game. And that's not silly, it's stupid.

  

@spellfire40: Yes, every single plane on the enemy team is counted, including all catapult planes whether they've been launched or not. This can easily add another 20 (and many more on higher tiers) planes to the needed plane count, and every time a CA sinks it takes it's planes down with it - even further reducing your chance of Clear Skies. 

 

And as Takru says; you have no idea how many planes you need to kill in any given match.

 

EDIT: @TriggerHappyDad: I know you run AS Bogue to farm Clear Sky: how often do you get it?

[Carnotzet]

Info about incoming interface improvements. Source

 

In brief

New sights with 20 "sections" (ticks) will be added in 0.5.4.1 (not in 0.5.4).

 

 

Soon, we will release a new post-battle screen. Moreover, before we release our customization system, we will add several different sights to choose from. With the new customization system, this feature will of course be further improved.

 

Our current version of post-battle statistics looks like this. [i translated all of the Russian text in paint so don't blame me if it's not very beautiful and professional]

 

Spoiler

 

 

We will naturally fix all the bugs and anomalies.

On the whole, the thought process behind the interface development is to model it on what the users want. Naturally, there are those who "want submarines" or "want to play another game", but the majority of players see the same problems as we do, with some rare exceptions (as you probably know, the changes we're talking about were not planned in the past few days; by the way, this is a good opportunity for us to think about changing our way of informing players about what we do). Things don't go always as smoothly and quickly as we and the players would like, but the interface is fully part of the development of the game. The team in charge of interface development doesn't and can't have any priorities, except conceptual ones.

 

In details

 

Your post [the one the dev is answering to] was a useful read. I will try to give a detailed response and I'll start with your assessment of our work. It's rather strange to hear that we "do nothing" and that we've done only 4 improvements in 15 months.

 

Time flies by players often forget,take for granted, or don't notice certain things, it has been and always be so. 

 

For instance, "elements needed to be added with the release of new game modes" is considered by many as taken for granted, as if we don't need to spend time working on it. It is not true. The support for new game modes (Ranked, Team battles) can hardly be categorized as what we call "support"; in fact, the interface team fully developed these game modes hand in hand with the other teams. Here is the list of things we added since the beginning of the beta test (in no particular order):

• Chat and contact list
• Events, missions, challenges and their reward system (incidentally, the mission "banner" was significantly improved in the last update)
• Port selection
• Ship carousel filters (we will soon release an improved version)
• Second version of the captain feature, including a captain carousel (as well as: the possibility to display captains from other nations, which many players whined about; the option to cancel the dismissal of a captain; an improved process for transferring captains; the ability to retrain captains)
• Reports and compliments
• First version of the karma system
• Two versions of system messages
• Cammos
• Flags
• Signals
• Reworked profile summary (ranked season stats were improved in the last update)
• Ranked battles
• Consumables
• Auto-resupply feature
• Team battles
• Personal offers system
• "educational" messages for new players (they don't show for experienced players)
• Arpeggio mod
• Armor x-ray (not released yet)
• Support for the "Zone" mode (yes it also required UI work since it differed from the old "Standard battle" mode)
• Support for the new "Standard battle" mode
• Tutorial mission

 

It's also important to remember that even basic features, such as the report and compliment system, don't make themselves (unfortunately), as some people seem to think. I must emphasize that, with this list, I'm not making any excuses for the things we didn't do. But as we have decided to put the matter on the table, I wanted everyone to understand the amount of work we're talking about.

 

Moreover, during all that time, we carried out several optimization cycles regarding the interface (freezes occur less often) and added several improvements "under the hood", which will give us more room for development and allow us to implement new decisions faster.

 

In addition to all of those features (of great and medium importance), every update brings many minor improvements (about 20-30 minor visual or functional features). For instance, the capitalization of ship names (which was a heated subject of discussion). Yes, it wasn't very successful when introduced - we didn't inform players about what it was and why it was added. It's a natural reaction when something people were accustomed to is changed. We fixed it, we explained - the anger subsided, many players understood our decision and are now fine using it. In general, there isn't a single solution; take for instance word capitalization, many other games use caps in their whole interface. We added a practical component to that decision (as we always try to do). 

 

Naturally, all of the work we've done doesn't mean there aren't any problems with the interface and doesn't negate the fact it needs some improvements. I will comment on the list you've made:

 

Sights

We increased the crosshair width. In update 0.5.4.1, it will have 20 "sections" (ticks)

 

Torpedo indicator

To track your torpedoes, you can switch to the tracking camera [Z]. In earlier versions, we had binoculars for torpedo armaments but decided to remove them. To aim torpedoes, you had to switch to binoculars and take aim, which wasn't very efficient since the ship you were aiming at was often outside of the binoculars view. 

 

Reload indicator

The problem of the reload bar not filling up linearly is an error. We'll make sure to fix it. 

 

[As you can see, the reload on the icon is not even half done whereas it's more than half completed on the line indicator]

 

Cannot see incapacitated torpedo armaments in gun mode (and vice versa)

Our primary goal is not simply to show information on the screen but to bring it to the player. Someone posted  a screenshot of a World of Warcraft player's interface (with a bunch of add-ons) that illustrates well what would happen if we implemented every suggestion players made. In such a case, it would become impossible for new players to apprehend the game. The idea of "it will solve itself" is important since it led us to the concept of allowing the playerbase to customize their interface.

 

Full interface customization is a very important aspect for us but, unfortunately, it will not be implemented in the near future. The technology we use is not appropriate to implement the customization we would deem suitable yet. For now, customizing one's interface as one would like is only possible through mods.

 

Ship "model"

In a near future, you'll be able to see your AA/secondary guns composition in battle

 

Minimap

At about the same time, we will significantly improve the minimap. In addition to being able to display various radii, you'll be able to enable or disable several parameters directly in battle. I think that everyone will find his groove.

 

Messages regarding ship kills

[Player suggests adding something like : Vasya_Pupkin [Kongo] destroyed Alex_nagibator_666 [NewMexico]]

We plan to modify it, it's on our list.

 

"Players panel"

 

I will be frank, we won't add players panel soon. As you know, there are other problems regarding the interface which are more important than players panel. For those who want more information than what the current battle interface offers, I suggest you download legal mods. 

 

Mods

Generally speaking, we treat mods not only as an opportunity to experiment various features (as you probably know, there are several mods made by WG employees), but also to understand what the playerbase wants, what we should do first (and what we should not do); it's also a good opportunity for players to put their ideas in practice. 

 

Post battle interface

The post-battle screen doesn't suit anybody, us included. We've already said we're working on improving it. The new version is nearing release and will be implemented in one of the next updates.

I must add that all the values shown in the post-battle screen don't come from nowhere. All the values the player sees come from various data collected server and client side. If something doesn't appear on the stats screen, it often means that data simply isn't collected. Thus, the game interface is only the tip of the iceberg, a little part of a more complex system which all of the dev team are working on.

 

Arrows in drop-down menus

I agree that this feature is not obvious, but it works simply enough that players can understand how it works after the first time. Once a player learns how the arrows work and what they mean, he doesn't have further problems with them. Will we change it? We will, but in order to do that, we need to change all of the port interface first.

 

Upgrades on ships

If you want to change one upgrade for another, you can simply click on the new one and the game will ask you what you want to do with the previous upgrade. There are help bubbles everywhere in case you need help. And if you think that it's not enough for some elements, do not hesitate to report it to us.

 

Post-battles messages (messages that appear  in the port on the right after a battle)

 

The current interface already works a bit differently than how it's shown in your screenshot. The next step is to add specific messages depending on what tab the player is on in the port.

 

Pressing [Esc] in the captain skills or the ship modules/upgrades window doesn't send the player back to the port

We will fix this issue. Our current architecture doesn't allow us to quickly fix this issue.

 

Closing the game by pressing [Alt + F4] or clicking on the X in the upper right corner in windowed mode

It works as follows: every command for closing the client will ask for a confirmation. It's not only to prevent accidentally closing the game by clicking on the cross in windowed mode or pressing Alt+F4 but also to prevent inexperienced users to fall in the "Press Alt+F4 to..." trap.

 

Closing thoughts

We appreciate any feedback the players provide us. Moreover, the interface is created solely from players' feedback. Constructive feedback is, however, taken more seriously. But, as I have already said, it's impossible to please everyone of you without making another person unhappy. This does not apply to one person specifically. Yes, it's always worth it for you to give us your point of view and your ideas. But remember, that the implementation of a suggestion is not always as simple as you think it is, whether it be from a technical or game design standpoint.

[Tyrendian89]

that all looks very cool! really liking those new post-battle screens, hoping they're not too far off.

One thing that immediately caught my eye sent all the alarms into overdrive though: On the earnings and spendings screen, there's 100 dubloons spent on Ammo resupply. Now, I'm pretty sure that's just a "feature" of the demo they obviously made for those screenshots (look at those awesome round numbers^^ also, props for five team kills). God I hope it's just that and we aren't getting premium ammo... or, if we do get it (which would probably suck but I'll wait to see the actual info) that it'll also be available for silver like in WoT...

[von_chom]

gold ammo, i srsly hope its early April joke

there are better ways how to earn money for servers and employees

if gold ammo will come, it will be in same way its now in wowp .. so ammo with increased fire chance, increased critical chance etc

no, just no !

the game still has issues with balance , so why not make the problem even more complicated