Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to this first,
very special episode of Waterline from Prague, the Heart of Europe.
With me today is our Community Producer Mr. Crysantos.
Welcome everybody and I’m not alone here obviously.
We have Mr. Conway, our Community Engagement Lead with us,
and we will be talking about the future things,
that you can expect from World of Warships soon TM.
The first topic we're going to be addressing today is submarines.
Before we get into what we're going to change,
we want to say thank you very much for participating so actively
in our tests this year,
but especially for providing such huge amounts of very valuable feedback.
They really helped us to decide what to do with submarines in the future.
One your main feedback points was the lack of counterplay
for battleships and heavy cruisers.
So this is why we are currently working on giving you the ability,
to launch an anti-submarine defense plane,
that will be able to deal with submarines when they're in your vicinity.
We’re also changing how the sonars ping mechanics work.
Obviously there are many, many more changes
that we're planning to do for submarines and their interaction with other classes,
for example, detectability,
but you can find all of that information on our very detailed Development Blog
regarding the vision that we have for submarines.
So please make sure to check it out on the Development Blog!
And we know that you’ll want to know "when can I play submarines again?"
and we’re happy to announce that we will be conducting another test
on a separate server before the end of this year
where you'll be able to get all of these changes
into your own hands and give us feedback.
One of the biggest changes we have planned for this year
is a rework of our Commander Skill System.
Mr. Conway, what are we planning?
So, we are going to add a whole bunch of additional skills,
we are going to remove some of the existing ones,
we're going to change some of the existing ones
but most of all we are going to give each captain
a separate skill tree for each ship class.
On top of that, we are going to increase the maximum skill points
that a commander can have from 19 up to 21.
Yes, there will also be a new way to get Elite Commander XP.
You will be able to dismiss unused commanders,
that you have lying around your Port and recoup some of their XP points.
But please keep in mind,
that this is a very early draft of this, so it’s heavily work in progress.
Please provide feedback, and we’ll keep you updated on potential changes.
The next topic we will be talking about is Hybrids.
Now Crysantos, please tell us, what is a Hybrid.
A Hybrid is either a cruiser or a battleship,
that is also able to launch squadrons of aircrafts.
Yes, this is made possible due to our rework of aircraft carriers.
And the main difference between regular battleships and cruisers is,
that Hybrids will have the option
to launch a squadron with a push of a button,
they will control this like an aircraft carrier
and once the squadron is destroyed or sent back,
they regain control of their ship.
As it is tradition, we’re going to have a new Halloween mode this fall.
And this year it’s gonna be very different.
Yes, but before we get into that, Crysantos, I have one question.
What do vegan zombies eat?
I don’t know.
Graaaaains!
So, we will be hosting a special new temporary battle mode
and it will feature a new kind of map,
that is several times larger
than the largest map we have currently in the game.
You’ll also be playing with 15 other players.
You will be able to fight monsters, players,
you will be able to form divisions dynamically
and during the match you can actually upgrade your ship.
And at the end, only 4 players will be able to escape through the portal.
We think it’s going to be a lot of fun
and we look forward to hearing your feedback
when you’ve participated in our Public Test.
Our next topic concerns something that you’ve been asking us about a lot
and that we’re very excited to finally announce.
It is the upcoming test of Italian battleships.
Yes, finally we will be bringing you a full branch of new battleships,
featuring historical ships like the Andrea Doria or the Vittorio Veneto.
With them come special features, that you already know from Italian cruisers.
They will have fuel exhaust smoke generators,
which means they will be able to smoke up while going full speed.
They will also feature semi armor-piercing shells
instead of high-explosive shells.
But we have to keep in mind, that they will have comparatively
lower caliber guns than other battleships.
For example, on Tier X, The Cristoforo Colombo
will be featuring 16 times 381 mm guns.
Yeah, keep an eye on the Dev Blog.
I’m sure you’ll be able to see them in a random battle near you soon.
Let’s talk about changes to game modes.
We are planning a big change for ranked battles.
We’re moving away from the current concept
and we will be running ranked battles constantly.
Instead we are going to be dividing those ranked battles into seasons
and we’re going to be subdividing each season into sprints
which last between 2 and 3 weeks.
But what does that mean for our fun modes, like 1v1 or 3v3?
It’s a very good question because we definitely don’t want those to go away.
Those will be integrated into updated brawls,
which going forward will be also available for players who are not in a clan.
That sounds very promising.
Stay tuned for more information.
On the Dev Blog.
As we are approaching autumn,
we also think it’s a great time
to start talking about our customary New Year activities.
And we have a whole host of things prepared for you this year.
First of all, the update will feature a new Dockyard event.
Second of all, we also have a new Port planned for you
and you will be able to get your hands on new Tier IX permanent camouflage,
that you can apply to your favorite Tier IX ship.
And that’s not all.
In addition, we are going to be introducing 2 new campaigns
and we are going to be changing the way that Snowflakes will be working.
Previously you needed to achieve a win to knock off a snowflake of your ship.
In the future, you will only have to achieve a certain amount of base experience,
so you can comfortably complete all of your Snowflakes in random battles.
We want to thank you very much for watching this episode of Waterline
and we hope that we were able to give you a little bit of insight
of what we have planned for you for the rest of the year.
Please make sure to follow our Development Blog
to get up to date and in-depth information
on all the features that we have talked about today.
And remember, all of this is work in progress.
If you have any questions about the things that we’ve just talked about,
make sure to check at our streams.
We're streaming every week in different languages,
where you can ask questions and we will be covering all of these topics
over the next few weeks.
Yes, you can find a link to our streaming schedules
in the description down below,
or head to wo.ws/schedule.
Until next time, thank you very much!
Bye bye!