Dev QA about the game

question

Hello Sub_Octavian!

I bring greetings from the ASIA SuperTest Team. All Hail Vadim.

Thanks for opening up this Q&A Session, I guess I'll get this ball rolling with this question regarding the Bismarck's No.3 Turret.

I've noticed something about the Bismarck and Tirpitz. Particularly the turret arcs of Bismarck's Turret No.3.

It has 5 degrees less turret arcs than the Tirpitz.

As seen here:

In comparison, this is turret no.4:

In Patch 0.5.8, the Tirpitz received a buff to its firing angles.

“Tirpitz: we reconsidered horizontal pointing angles of main guns. As a result, pointing angles of the second the third and the fourth main battery turrets extended at 3, 5 and 1 degrees respectively. The changes became a result of increased accuracy of main guns motion trajectories, which will make the game more comfortable without influencing the ship's balance”

Specifically, the same Turret No.3 on the Tirpitz received a 5 degree turret arc buff.

Is there a reason why the Bismarck's No.3 retains the 40 degree restriction?

Was this change forgotten on the Bismarck? Or was this intentional?
Seems really weird as both ships are identical (Bismarck represents the Class whereas Tirpitz represents the Actual Tirpitz)

answer

Hello. Thank you, and please send my greetings in return.

The issue you are talking about will be fixed, hopefully, in 0.5.12.

question

Great initiative – long may it last 🙂

#1 while Koenig's stock stats are almost historical her model is not. I don't mind her elite what-if hull but am sad that stock is not her historical appearance. Can we get a historical stock hull for her or maybe as a premium?

#2 can Kaiser get her historical hull as well?

Thanks in advance!

answer

Hi, thank you. I will try to make it constant.

These ships won't receive their “historical stock” hulls, primarily due to low AA upgrade potential and expected low gameplay comfort.

While we have several BBs in the game with such hulls, we do not think this is the best solution. We may even remove these hulls later, to make these ships more attractive and easier to play.

Yes, the hulls that were removed / omitted this way may become premium ships, separately balanced and maybe on different tier, but there are no such ships planned fort he nearest future.

We'll see about the threads. Let's start with what we have now.

question

This question may have been answered before hand, but a while back Hakuryuu and Midway had a different set of planes compared to what they have now. I know why the jet fighters were removed, but was there any particular reason as to why the torpedo bombers and dive bombers were changed? Hakuryuu now has modified Saiun's for her torpedo bombers, and Wakusei's (?) for her dive bombers. I miss the old prototype torpedo bombers and the twin-engined dive bombers, why were they removed?

answer

Good day to you. Their planes had to be changed for balancing purposes. We could either re-balance their specs or just use other planes that were appropriate. We used the second option, this is it.

question

there is a lot of players in a division experience spawn on top of each other( Rated PG) some are spawn so far away from each other and some the voice chat doesnt work Hope you guys can fix it soon Thank u.

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Yep, we're on it. Thank you!

question

Recently there were changes to MM for Tiers 1-4, an unfortunate side effect places T5 in over 50% tier 7 matches (tallied pen and paper style) are there any plans to look at that?

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This is not the best situation for T5-6, I agree, they see more difficult battle level nowadays. However, this is not critical. I play these tier myself from time to time (helping my new employee to level up, heh).

On the other hand, this contributes to T3-4 comfort and to T7-8 popularity.

I am not saying the current situation is perfect, this is why we are researching it and in some time, we will decide whether any additional action is needed for T5-6.

question

What is the reasoning behind the change with the EM skill? For some ships (*cough,coughMOGAMIcough*) it makes the turrets turn much too slow. I'm guessing this is because the ships were given adjusted turret rotation time to compensate for the buff EM would have given them, but now that EM doesn't give the larger buff to 6inch guns, those ships need to be given historically fast, or just faster, turret rotation times.

Also, why was it that EM had to be changed? I understand why AFT and BFT had to be changed, but no one was complaining about how Clevelands and Mogamis were rotating their turrets too fast.

(also thank you for making this thread!)

answer

We wanted to make EM, AFT and BFT unified in terms of caliber/efficiency, that's all. The problems of certain ships (if there are not so many of them) should be solved by changing their specs, not by changing the skills.

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What are the plans for redoing the load outs on USN CVs or are their any?

Apologizes if this question has already been addressed.

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Sorry, this is a suggestion, rather than a question. Please try to avoid such things, as it may easily lead to “what are the plans for submarines” stuff

There are no any special plans for CVs for the nearest updates (except for CV economy in 0.5.12 and we also want to address the issue with low-lvl CVs. Globally we would like to change CVs UI and overall learning curve. But these are long-term plans.

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i do have one question its in 130 parts, so most of us have seen the intented split in the ijn dd line will other nations be affected over time or is this a limited test and secondly how are you going to rebalance for example the fubuki, finally those that have grinded their way up will they get xp compensated for the down tiers or are you just going to give us the new dds with the port slots. thanks for answering when you can get round to it.

answer

If I got your 1st question right – yes, other lines may also be “branched” in the furure, but let's see how things go with IJN DDs first.

I'd rather not comment on this re-balance just yet, these ships are not being teseted in production, so it's too early for such discussion.

question

So since you guys have scrapped the “Line of Flints” idea for the British CL line, what are you planning to do? Supposedly it is an AP oriented line, but the current situation is “Developers are still struggling with their balancing” so are you going to still release them at the end of September or will it be postponed?

Pretty good thread about that here: https://forum.worldof…__fromsearch__1

answer

AP and very intense gameplay. No smoke+napalm stuff, we think there's enough of this in the game already, no need to add more.

We are definetely NOT going to release them in 0.5.12 as we initially planned, and we'll see how it goes during the production test.

question

Carrying over these questions from my PM then.

1. How do “critical hits” on modules work? This is important for knowing the value of the Preventative Maintenance commander skill. For example:

2. Can you explain how detonations work? Do they only occur when hitting magazines? Is it a set % chance on any hit, or do they have to take a certain amount of damage first? How do the various flags (Juliet Charlie, India X-Ray) and Magazine Modification 1 mathematically interact with the detonation chance?

3. How does “sigma” work in regards to shell accuracy?

4. Can you better explain how dispersion works and how it scales with range? Please explain the effects of using “X” for a target lock, firing at an enemy with +4% dispersion camo, and Aiming Systems Modification 1 or Artillery Plotting Room Modification 2.

Thank you.

answer

Great, thank you for bringing this.

1. Critical hit is temporary condition of the module (don't mix it with total destruction, e.g. when you lose main caliber turret). It is calulated each time a module receives some damage.

A module can receive damage if it is hit directly by shell or bomb, or if it is affected by splash (HE shell, bomb, torpedo) damage. Modules also have HP (some don't though – engine and rudder, because we don't want absolute immobilization in game), when total damage received exceeds module HP, it is destroyed.

So, when a module gets hit, there's chance it breaks. Preventative Maintenance commander skill results in: critical chance x 0,5.

Most modules have their crit chance increasing along with damage received (however, engine and rudder have it vice versa – we don't want them to break constantly at the late stage of battle, right?).

2. Detonation is basically a crit for the magazine, but its effect is big kaboom instead of breaking a module. There's basic explosion %chance, which increases along with damage the magazine has taken. Mathematically, JC signal reduces the chance to 0, without any way to influence it. Magazine mod.1 is chance x 0.3. “Offensive” signals also multilpy, but as I said, Juliet Charlie has absolute effect that cannot be overruled.

3. Sigma value affects the density of salvo relatively to the center of shell dispersion. We don't use Sigma very often, but do sometimes for balance puproses.

4. Uh-oh. You got me. Let's try to make the short explanation (I will simplify some things because I want to help you with the meaningful basics, rather than post wall of text).

Eevry time you hit FIRE, there's dispersion ellipsis built.

Let us note that number of barrels do not affect the dispersion parameters, so you don't get improved salvo density when firing turret-by-turret.

Vertical dispersion is calculated based on horizontal dispersion. Dispersion ellipsis, of course, gets larger and larger with range.

Target lock is vital.

1. Without it, you get dispersion multiplier (debuff). A serious one.

2. Without it, you are likely to have lame aim. Why? Let us see:

I already metioned that without TL, you have increased dispersion, which is not good. Then, you have camera following the target, which is very convenient. And finally…

Pic.1. We aim for the draught line, so we combine it with horizontal aim, compensate for ship movement, and, if we did everything correct, we are fine.

Pic.2. We want to hit the superstructure or we know the target is turning left and want to compensate fot the maneuver. So we aim “higher”. Guess what? We're targeting this mountain now. But target lock places your aim relatively to the locked target. So here's the difference:

Green line is our LOS (we aim “for the mountain”, but we we actually want to hit the ship).

Black lines are our shell trajectories WITH target lock.

Red lines are shell trajectories WITHOUT target lock.

So, ALWAYS lock your target.

Aiming Systems Modification 1 or Artillery Plotting Room Modification 2 adjust your horizontal dispersion thus reducing dispersion ellipsis surface. E.g. ASM mod 1 is “max horizontal dispersion x 0.93”.

On the other hand, when you equip +4% dispersion camo, all players that have you locked will have x 1.04 to their max horizontal dispersion. They of course can try shooting you without TL but I already explained what that means.

I think this is it. Please let me know if there's additional questions.

question

Hi, I was just wondering if there are any plans to improve high tier cruiser gameplay in the near future. Tiers 7-8+ usually encounter some pretty rough battleships that can rip them apart from very long ranges and very odd angles. Specifically, one question I had was for tier 8, a lot of threads suggest that tier 8 cruisers should be given the repair party consumable to help lessen the power gap, Have you already or do you plan to look into this?

answer

Yes, there are such plans, with direct or indirect changes. For now it is new modernization for VIII+ cruisers in 0.5.12 (direct), and also BB plating nerf (indirect). There will be more changes later.

Yes, we will probably try repair party on the future RN VIII and see how it goes.

question

Thanks for this thread, Oc!

I feel like the USN's battleship secondaries are the least useful of all three trees right now. I know there was a range buff to them some time ago, but the battery is still weak compared to the German and IJN secondaries. What's the reasoning behind having the fire rate on the US 5″ guns so much lower than their historical counterparts? Having the higher fire rate would go a long way towards making the secondaries on the US battleships more practical, as their poor arcs and low fire rate as it stands now keeps it from being a practical option.

answer

You are welcome!

The reason is that USN battleships are very strong in AA defence, so their secondaries are worse.

As a player, I would spec my German BB in secondaries, IJN in secondaries OR universal and USN in AA or universal.

question

1) Bismarck feels a little bit too strong at the moment, having very good long range secondaries and sonar makes it very hard for destroyers of any kind to deal with a Bismarck, what are your thoughts on her state?

2) Can you talk about what is happening to Team Battles?

3) Will the St. Petersburg port disappear or will it stay permanently with changing cosmetics like the New York port?

4) You mentioned that Royal Navy Cruiser line won't be released on 0.5.12, so would it be a possibility that the alternate Japanese Destroyer line will be released first?

5) Is there even a chance that Kitakami could come back in any way?

Anyway, I suspect that last question will not get answered. Thanks for having a presence on the NA forums though, communication with the devs is always good for any game

answer

1. We don't have enough average player stats on her to say for sure, but let's see how BB 0.5.12 change affects the situation first.

2. Yes, but I don't have much to say, unfortunately. We're on different things for now, including PvE, boxes and clans.

3. It will stay. We put effort into it, and players tend to like it. We see no point in removing it.

4. We will see. Both lines are likely to go through production testing after 0.5.12 release.

5. There's always hope…but if “in any way” doen't mean “without torpedo launchers in the amounts that make Shimakaze blush”, then there's little hope now.

You are welcome. You have solid community here, and I'm very happy to be in touch,

question

Are there any plans to revamp the captain skill tree such that less popular skills (e.g. Last Chance, Dogfighting Expert) become more viable?

answer

Yes, there is new approach to captain skills (including the use of exp points you get after 18-th point) being designed. Once it is approved, developement process will start and in several versions I will be able to tell you more