Test server - WHERE are players?

[Finnka]

Test server - WHERE are players? Random and even co-op battles waiting time is too long. 

[Aldramelech]

Well from my point of view I really can't be bothered to jump through hoops for two days testing, my time is limited.

[kantkantian]

If I were to download the test server I'd be left qith no internet.

[Admiral_noodle]

Um didn't it say it was ending at 14:00 CET?

 

i love testing. If it's extended to tonight I'll hop back on. 

[Admiral_noodle]

Oh this:

 

http://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/cbt/public-test-051/

[Fi_8_8_8_8]

Is there any incentive to do so, apart from the "you get to see the changes first" argument? If not then I rather keep playing normal random games with squad mates or ranked as soon as it's back.

[Admiral_noodle]

I quite like seeing new stuff early and tasting the ships o don't have yet. Plus I don't have to "play seriously"

 

[Kirasa]

The second PT start has no additional xp and creds boni, apart from way higher base xp. So if you don't have all the ships you want to test it could take a few matches to get them now.

[ScarecrowCZ]

I have always only used test server to test out new premium vehicles. Not very interested in new features atm.

[Admiral_noodle]

The economy is normal but the XP is still huge. This means I get to see the economy at tier X for myself...

 

Game in Hindenberg. Manic, 3 kills but only 40k damage. Sank. Profit 55k. Without premium 50k loss.

 

So an average scrub will break even at tier ten on average *if* they have premium.

[LMN118]

It's difficult to test something without a full and detailed change log from the developers. 

[LooneyBin]

It's difficult to test something without a full and detailed change log from the developers. 

 

and why is that difficult?

play the game, if you notice something different, goodie, there's a new thing. and if you dont, well, guess no harm is done then.

[LMN118]

 

and why is that difficult?

play the game, if you notice something different, goodie, there's a new thing. and if you dont, well, guess no harm is done then.

 

erm...because its a test environment, released so we can specifically test the changes they have made. I think you don't quite grasp what testing is all about. The second phase of testing is about to begin, that's nice but what has changed since the first phase (of which we don't have official notes) did they make any changes based on feedback and to what?

[OldGrandad]

It's difficult to test something without a full and detailed change log from the developers. 

 

DISCLAIMER: These patch notes may contain mistakes/obsolete information and are subject to change based on the results of the public test!

 

Changes/additions from 0.5.1 Public Test #1 to Public Test #2:

MatchMaker:

• For Random & Ranked Battles Carriers now will be strongly symmetrical in terms of their tiers regardless of waiting time
• For Ranked Battles decreased chance for having more than two Battleships per team

Other changes:

• Slightly changed amount of experience needed to reach 3rd, 4th & 10th Account Level
• Changed amplitude for ships' pitching for all the maps
• Fixed bug which caused absence of text in "Events" tab description
• Default layout for Missions & Quests changed from tiles to carousel
• Fixed an issue which caused catapult fighter and spotter to circulate too close to the ship.
• Fixed an issue which caused Japanese and American torpedo bombers attacks to render incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where player was sent to port directly after the battle ended, without the results screen
• American torpedo bombers attack point now depends on squadron speed
• Intro-mission is now available for all new players (new accounts only)
• Fixed issues where commanders' skills did not work according to UI
• Trap map: Changed skybox, reflection settings, brightness, contrast & lightness settings. Volcano smoke is removed now.
• North & Northen Lights maps: added collision for piers & other coastal objects

 

Changes/additions from version 0.5.0.3 to version 0.5.1 Public Test #1:

 

Changes in Service Record

• Now a total of 11 levels are available in the player's Service Record (XP milestones required for reaching the next level have been revised and recalculated to reflect the player's current level in the Service Record, the player's total XP has been retained)
• Tech Trees for ships and modules are now unavailable at Level 1 in the Service Record, and only become available when the player reaches Level 2.
• If certain features, which were previously available to the player, have been moved to a higher Level in Service Record that the player has not yet reached, the player will be promoted to the respective higher level in their Service Record
• Level 10 of the Service Record introduces Missions, Events and Challenges
• The Ranked Battles have been moved to Level 11 of the Service Record

Missions, Challenges and Events

• Events, Challenges and Missions become available for players who reach Level 10 in the Service Record. Players can click on the respective panel in the upper left corner in the Port to go to Events, Challenges and Missions
• Specials may be timed to coincide with a specific Event, and come with a description and duration of their own
• Missions can be completed once for each game account, while Challenges may be completed an unlimited number of times. All Missions and Challenges have a duration period
• When a Mission can be completed over a number of battles, then such a Mission will have a completion progress bar
• Conditions for completing Missions and Challenges have been introduced. For example, "Complete the Mission while playing on a specific ship/in a Division/in a specific battle type"
• Players are given rewards for completing missions. The list of rewards has been extended. Now players may be rewarded with ships, consumables, upgrades, signals, camouflage, credits, doubloons, Free XP, Service Record XP points, Premium account, places for Commanders in the Reserve, rewards and bonuses in a giftbox, and coefficients (multipliers) applied to any resources earned in a battle

Daily Missions

• Now one of the three Daily Missions may be replaced once every 24 hours
• The player can replace a new mission, as well as a mission which can be completed during a number of battles. However, when the latter is replaced, all progress will be lost
• When the player completes the mission during a battle, but exits to Port and replaces the Mission before the end of the current battle, the reward will not be given and the progress will not be accounted for
• In contrast to Daily Missions, the player cannot replace Challenges, Missions and Events
• A new Daily Mission is marked with an indicator. The indicator remains visible until the player clicks the Mission

Ranked Battles

• The number of points a team needs to score for a victory has been raised to 1000. Now the initial score is set at 300 points.
• Now all maps in Ranked Battles have two Key Areas
• The Ocean, Strait and Land of Fire maps will become available in Ranked Battles
• Now different limitations on the tiers of ships may be set for the Leagues
• League flags and Commemorative flags have been introduced
• The League flag indicates that the player belongs to a League during a season of Ranked Battles. The League flags are discarded at the end of a season.
• Commemorative flags are given at the end of a season, if the player meets the respective requirements.

Introductory Mission

• An Introductory Mission will be available for newcomers. The Introductory Mission will help new players learn the game basics, when they log in to the game for the first time.

Ships 

General:

• Aircraft torpedoes' chance of causing a flooding has been reduced by approximately half
• Aircraft speed has been slightly increased for air squadron assault mode, and damage caused by aircraft in this mode has been increased as well
• The damage that a higher tier ship receives from flooding is no longer significantly less than the damage a lower tier ship receives from the same flooding.
• Two charges of the Defensive AA Fire consumable are now available for cruisers of all nations, except the U.S.A. whose cruisers have 3 charges of this consumable
• Two charges of Hydroacoustic Search are available for all ships
• Two charges of Defensive Fire is available for all cruisers, except the US whose cruisers have 3 charges of this consumable, with Atlanta being the only exception that keeps the aunlimited amount of charges for this consumable. 
• Improved the logic of counting the ricochet trajectory in the joint of a several layers of armour.
• Fixes of the spotting within 200м from the main batteries (Kolberg, Clemson, Pensacola, Des Moines, Isokaze) and airplanes (Baltimore) 
• Revised the acceleration and deceleration characteristics for all ships (changes within half a knot). 

U.S.A.

• The armor plating of Baltimore and Des Moines has been thickened by 2 mm
• The bomb dispersion  under fire of U.S. bombers has been reduced 
• Changes for U.S. Destroyers:
  • Nicholas Mk15 mod. 0 torpedoes have been removed from the Tech Tree
  • Farragut: Mk15 mod. 0 torpedoes have been replaced with Mark 11 torpedoes; Mk15 mod. 3 torpedoes have been replaced with Mark 12 torpedoes
  • Mahan: Mk15 mod. 3 torpedoes have been replaced with Mark 12 torpedoes; Mark 12 torpedoes have been replaced with Mk15 mod. 0 torpedoes
  • Mahan: Hull B has been moved to become hull C (with enhanced AA defense), the now vacant position of hull B has been filled by a totally new hull. If the ship had an Elite status, the new Hull B becomes researched. Otherwise, Hull C is shown as not researched.
  • Benson: Mark 12 torpedoes have been replaced with Mk15 mod. 0 torpedoes; Mk14 mod. 3 torpedoes have been replaced with Mk15 mod. 3 torpedoes
  • Benson: Main battery's rate of fire has been increased
  • Fletcher: Mark 12 torpedoes have been replaced with Mk15 mod. 0 torpedoes; Mk14 mod. 3 torpedoes have been replaced with Mk15 mod. 3 torpedoes
  • Fletcher: Main battery's rate of fire has been increased
  • Sims: Main battery's rate of fire has been increased
• For Omaha cruiser, the number of aircraft on board has been reduced to 2 planes
• For other U.S.A. cruisers, the number of aircraft on board has been increased to 4 planes
• 203 mm AP shells fired by the main batteries of U.S.A. cruisers (except for the stock main battery of Pensacola) will enjoy better ricochet angles

Japan

• For Japanese bombers, the bomb attack area has been reduced for situations when the player releases bombs in manual mode
• Atago: rudder shift time has been shortened by 20%, and the Repair Party consumable has been added
• Number of aircrafts on the Myogi battleship and Zao cruiser reduced to 2
• Number of aircrafts on the Kuma cruiser reduced to 1
• Aichi D1A2 – approach radius reduced 

Russia

• Izyaslav: the ship has been given designed speed of 35 knots (instead of 31,9)
• Derzkiy: the ship has been given designed speed of 34 knots (instead of 32,8)
• Orlan - increased durability of main battery to the level of Hashidate
• Kiev – replaced 4 AA batteries 12,7-мм DShKM-2b for 25-мм 2М-3 – new guns work on a distance thrice as long, and are twice as powerful. This made for AA integral characterisctics increase in 6 points.

Germany

• For Dresden, Kolberg and Karsruhe AP shells have been recalculated, armor penetration has been increased
• For Hermelin, central hull platearmor has been increased to 23 mm, increased durability of main battery to the level of Hashidate.
• Karlsruhe – engine protection against HE shells improved threefold.

Aircraft

• The logic for behavior of fighters has been improved. Now, when fighters attack other fighters, the squadron being attacked will automatically counterattack and will not abandon the dogfight until it runs out of ammunition.
• Implemented the ability to change the direction of the squadron attack by holding and dragging the attack cone or ellipse.
• Implemented smooth movement of the torpedo bombers squadron's cone in automatic attack mode
• Improved the rendering of the bombers attack in the ship’s camera

Added Maps:

• Land of Fire
  • The distinctive feature of this map is long and narrow rock ridges that can be used as cover by small ships. This map will be available for battles between ships of Tiers VII through X.
• Northern Lights 
  • This is a counterpart of the North map with different visuals.
• Trap 
  • This map will be available for battles between ships of Tiers VIII through X.

Map Changes:

• Strait:
  • Changed ship spawn points. Now the distribution of ships into groups is more balanced
• Hotspot:
  • Removed the crisscross team spawn pattern
  • Changed the location of a large island at one of the flanks
  • Corrected the shape of one of the large islands
  • Changed the location of Key Areas in the Domination mode
• Two Brothers:
  • The landscape on the map underwent an extensive rework with numerous changes made to the location and shape of islands
• Big Race:
  • Moved all landscape objects to the corner where the continental land is located. Changed location of the continental land itself.
  • Added the Domination mode with two Key Areas
• Islands of Ice:
  • The iceberg field in the lower right corner underwent an extensive rework
  • Decreased the number of icebergs by about a third
  • Now there are three Key Areas on the map in the Domination mode
  • The lower left corner is now more separated and has a mountain as a visual landmark
  • The lower right corner is now more separated and covered by an ice field
  • Now the icebergs located on the map are in a more uniform formation
• Solomon Islands:
  •  Now this map is available for battles between ships of Tiers II through VI

Interaction between Ships and Map Borders

• If the ship controlled by a player stays in the map border area for too long, her engine power will be forcefully decreased. The engine power will be restored after the ship leaves the map border area

New Battle Mode: Zone

• Zone is a huge base in the center of a map that becomes available for capture two minutes after the battle has started. It takes 60 seconds to capture the Zone, regardless of the number of capturing ships. The capturing will slow down when there are enemy ships within the Zone. However damage received by ships does not slow down the capturing.
• This mode will be available on the Ocean, Big Race, Trap, and Islands of Ice maps.

Changes in Domination Mode

• Now players will be rewarded with XP and credits for capturing, defending, and blocking the capture of bases. Rewards will be given for: capturing the base (namely, for base capture points; for example, if two players captured a base together and at the same time, then each player will receive a half of the reward), defending the base (namely, for base capture points that a player takes away from an enemy ship capturing a base by damaging this enemy), and blocking the base capture (staying within the base simultaneously with the enemy, which prevents the enemy from capturing the base or earning base capture points)
• Changed the amount of penalty points for losing allied ships and reward points for destroying enemy ships in the Domination mode
• Destroyer: 45 penalty points; 30 reward points
• Cruiser: 50 penalty points; 35 reward points
• Battleship: 60 penalty points; 40 reward points
• Aircraft Carrier: 65 penalty points; 45 reward points
• Changed the notification at the end of a battle when the 20 minute time limit has expired.

AI Changes

• Improved behavior for AI-controlled ships on the maps. Now AI-controlled ships move in formations. Destroyers stay closer to islands, battleships keep away from islands, and aircraft carriers move about in safer areas instead of going straight to the center of a map
• Improved behavior for AI-controlled ships in the event of accidental collision with the sea landscape

Other Changes

• Improved spawn layout for players of the same Division. Now the ships controlled by players in the same Division will be spawned as close to each other as possible when the battle starts
• Reworked system for notifications played when either team is about to win or takes the lead. Now the notifications will be played in the following cases:
• the enemy team has twice as many ships as the allied team
• the allied team has twice as many points as the enemy team
• the enemy team only needs to destroy two allied ships to win
• the allied team only needs to destroy two enemy ships to win
• Implemented notification about battle ending soon (played when there are five minutes left before the end of the battle)

Sound

• Totally reworked the sounds of engines for all ships in the game. Now the sound of a ship's engine will depend not only on the current ship speed, but also on the position of the bridge telegraph lever
• Added new firing sounds
• Overhauled sounds for the low sound quality setting: now special sound banks will be loaded when this setting is selected. In these sound banks, post-processing effects for movement and firing are disabled and significant restrictions are imposed on the playback of sounds. This sound quality setting is recommended for low performance computers
• Improved certain interface sounds
• Added two new music tracks
• Reduced RAM usage of the sound system
• Updated version of the sound engine, optimized playback of sounds in the .ogg format

Port

• Reworked the "carousel" of ships at the bottom of the Port screen:
• Now the displayed ships can be filtered by: name, nation, tier, type, Elite status, Premium status, applicability of specials with bonus multipliers for the first battle, as well as a combination of any filter criteria mentioned above
• Added an alternative mode for displaying ships, with smaller ship icons in the slots

Economy

• Redistribution of rewards for the battle done in such a way that the capture, blocking and defence of the bases are taken into account, and in the Domination mode too. Now an active game with capturing, blocking and defending bases will yield more credits and experience on average. At the same time, earning of the credits and experience for the team in general remained within the same values as in the previous version.
• In connection with these innovations, the general factors of earning experience and credits were rebalanced for the majority of ships, except for the premium ones.

System Changes

• Optimized network traffic between the game client and the game server
• Added a system that expects acknowledgment from the game server for any user action, which resulted in a significant decrease in the risk of losing game items due to poor network connection quality
• Improved performance of the effects subsystem on multicore CPUs (with more than 2 cores)
• Improved performance of the subsystem for rendering markers in battle
• Optimized several subsystems for the Binocular View
• Added a new sea rendering quality setting, Very Low, to the graphics settings. Using this quality setting provides a significant performance boost for computers with entry level graphics, owing to simplified simulation and rendering of seawater in the game. Moreover, reflections and shadows on the water surface are also disabled when this quality setting is selected. For other sea rendering quality settings, minor improvements to the visuals as well as utilization of graphics resources were added.
• Implemented an optimization that reduces the risk of the game client freezing
• Added logic to the game client which detects that the application is frozen and then terminates the application correctly

 

Original post here

[Gatt]

Sorry for the stupid question. I want to test Tier IX and X german cruisers. Do I have to grind the entire tree starting from Tier I with 2.500 doubloons?

[OldGrandad]

Sorry for the stupid question. I want to test Tier IX and X german cruisers. Do I have to grind the entire tree starting from Tier I with 2.500 doubloons?

 

In one word, yes. It was easy with the 40x and 60x mulitpliers in the last PT patch but now it will be much harder to grind because earnings are much less.

[Gatt]

Awww, thanks. Not my cup of tea then.

[mtm78]

Is there any incentive to do so, apart from the "you get to see the changes first" argument? If not then I rather keep playing normal random games with squad mates or ranked as soon as it's back.

 

Yes, ST can test for bugs and obvious imbalances, but due to limited sample size we can not generate enough data to base balance changes on. PT is essential to give the developers access to a large enough dataset.

 

It also enables you to test if a new build is bugged on your system before it goes to live, again ST and developers naturally don't have all available hw combinations possible due to limited numbers, giving everyone the opportunity to test the new changes/additions works both ways, and both benefit from it.

 

[daki]

Is there any incentive to do so, apart from the "you get to see the changes first" argument? If not then I rather keep playing normal random games with squad mates or ranked as soon as it's back.

 

It allows you to try out high tier ships and basically help you decide which tree you will focus on first.

As it only takes a dozen or so battles to unlock a T10, in very little time you can have a full port.

Furthermore, its great for testing which skills you are going to give your captain, as any "mistake" on the live server is costly indeed.

 

[mtm78]

 

It allows you to try out high tier ships and basically help you decide which tree you will focus on first.

As it only takes a dozen or so battles to unlock a T10, in very little time you can have a full port.

Furthermore, its great for testing which skills you are going to give your captain, as any "mistake" on the live server is costly indeed.

 

 

And that 

[Nefczi]

 

In one word, yes. It was easy with the 40x and 60x mulitpliers in the last PT patch but now it will be much harder to grind because earnings are much less.

 

You are confusing test server xp rate multiplier(hidden) with daily first win bonus(seen in port on ships icons - it was 40x(60?) during first test, now its normal 1.5x in second test). So they only reduced wirst win multiplier, but this hidden test server xp multiplier is still active. I still get 100-300k xp per battle.

[Deckeru_Maiku]

Can't say that the experience multiplier is that bad...

I started with 3 billion silver, 3000 dubloons and 18 free exp.

As I had most classes on Tier 10 from the previous tests, I concentrated on playing the german and russian ships first. Took only one battle per tier (most of the time) to get them up to T 5.

The dubloons were used to retrain my level 18/19 captains for IJN DD & CV and for US DD at Tier 4 because I wanted to see how the CV changes worked out at that level and I wanted to compare the DDs of the different nations.

[OldGrandad]

You are confusing test server xp rate multiplier(hidden) with daily first win bonus(seen in port on ships icons - it was 40x(60?) during first test, now its normal 1.5x in second test). So they only reduced wirst win multiplier, but this hidden test server xp multiplier is still active. I still get 100-300k xp per battle.

 

I am not, there must be an error then on my earnings, It is multiplied but not by the original amount, To give an example, prior to the 'patch' with the 40/60x multiplier I could immediately research the next ship and more, now I have to do 4 or 5 battles per ship to grind then research the next ship. Saying that, I am having other bugs with the test server client so I am not surprised!

[SkybuckFlying]

For me currently it makes no more sense to participate in both games:

 

1. The current official server/game freezes to much in random battles, and ranked battles not available.

2. The test server/game has no longer 60x multiplier so can't test the few remaining ship tiers I'd like to test.

 

So only reason to join these servers would be:

1. For the halloween event, which probably isn't that great anyway and only a very small chance of encountering it and even then it would probably suck because of low fps/freezes

2. To have some more slight fun with new ships.

Though I can't really take 2 too seriously...

 

Main problem with 2 right now... is too little players for ranked games... I'd still like to try that out... it's kinda odd right now... it's limited to tier 5 and tier 6... no idea why that is ?

 

So far the new missions/challenges seem somewhat weird/akward... I don't care too much in participating in them conciously... but if I happen to forfill some of the conditions/requirements and free stuff that's ok ! But it does seem somewhat weird/confusion if I suddenly completed a challenge without knowing about it ?! I guess it's a bit like call of duty's achievemens: "hot patatoe - kill enemy with it's own grenade ! )".

 

Best challenge reward I have seen so far: get a free extra slot or something.

 

It's nice that rewards can be seen by hovering over it... perhaps it should be made even more exploit by just having a plain simple list of challenge with reward descriptions behind it so users can decide faster which challenges they may like...

 

Now it requires to much clicking and going back and forth to see what each challenge is about and it's reward...

 

Also the ammount of "test players" is currently somewhat low: about 1000. (currently night time in europe).

 

This is somewhat amazing because the test server is actually quite cool.. and I am very glad I participated into it !

 

There is some risk to the developers though:

 

Players might get bored with the game because they already tried out most of the higher tier ships ! ;)

 

Though I will probably return for the new ranked battle season ! I found that the most exciting/thrilling so far ! ;) =D

[Finnka]

Nobody seen those 244 x multipliers? 

 

Kagero has 5.6 mil exp

 

Waiting time on primetime is pretty long.