Hi everyone!
Today we'll tell you more about the new battle type
in World of Warships—Team Battles.
Full ahead!
Though World of Warships always has a place for individual
achievements and heroic deeds, our game is mostly team-based,
that's why the request for team interaction existed
from the very beginning of World of Warships’ development,
and now we’re launching Team Battles...
If we look at video games of a similar genre,
we'll see that the majority of them have the usual gameplay,
which we call the "ruthless random" in our game,
and some sort of clan battles. And only 5% of players at best participate in them.
It creates a huge gap. That made us think:
what can we offer to bridge this gap?
Ranked Battles were the first stage.
A significant number of players already tried them.
Team Battles will be the next step on the way to clan battles.
First of all, Team Battles is the battle type for those who like to win.
Our players often find themselves in a situation where they do everything they can to win,
but fate has brought them a team of less skillful allies, and they lose.
Now the situation is going to change: if you’re determined to win
and want to be fully responsible for your success in battle,
you can assemble a team, invite people that you trust to join, and lead them to victory.
These will be 7 vs 7 battles, but every Team can have up to ten members…
An important feature for our Team Battles
is that a player can be a member of three Teams simultaneously,
either as the creator or a normal member. How does it work?
For example, you have an established company of players with whom you achieved great coordination
and efficiency in battle and you aim to enter the Hall of Fame in our game.
But at the same time, you have friends with whom you just want to have fun on weekends.
Now you won't need to choose a single group to play with,
you can join Team Battles with all of them.
Team Battles won't be available around the clock:
each region will have a dedicated period of time
when the majority of active players are able to participate in battles.
Now, you need somebody to play with:
for example, two Teams are online, they meet each other, fight, and return to Port.
Then they click the Battle! button and meet on the battlefield again. That's bad.
And that's where we got the idea for Prime Time:
for example, we'll make Team Battles available from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. and that's it.
Between Prime Times all teams will gather and prepare.
And when the time comes, there will be numerous Teams
and they won't have to fight the same adversary over and over,
but instead face five different Teams in one evening.
Team Battles are intended for experienced players.
Firstly, the feature becomes available at level 12 of the Service Record,
so newcomers won’t have access to it straight away.
Secondly, we are planning to let high-tiered ships play there.
The thing is that many players say they wish to have more thoughtful
and tactical gameplay on high tiers,
and Random Battles don’t offer that capability.
Consequently, in Team Battles we will try to accommodate the precious high-tiered ships,
let them fight plenty of battles,
and see what they are worth when it comes to real action…
Compared to Ranked Battles, it’s a higher level of hardcore engagement.
In Ranked Battles, you can advance through your diligence:
simply fight many-many-many battles and achieve a high rank.
In Team Battles, we decided to apply the Elo rating.
It is a famous mathematic formula for calculating a player’s rating,
widely used in chess and table tennis.
The Elo rating clearly shows a team’s skill: no matter how much you play,
you won’t take over by just fighting a lot of battles badly.
You’ll need to improve your skill first and do well, which will then raise your rating—
there’s no other way...
If you’re a newcomer and don't have a Team, it's very easy to start playing in Team Battles,
you just need to say that you want to join a Team.
There’s also a simpler way for those who don't want to attract attention
or don’t want to wait:
they can become mercenaries and play for different Teams
without becoming a full-fledged member of any of them...
It’s quite easy to become a mercenary.
Just pick a suitable ship and click Battle!
The matchmaker will assign you to a Team that doesn’t have enough players.
That way you can try the battle type, and the Team can fill its vacant places for a battle.
After the battle you will remain in the team as a mercenary.
If you get along with your new comrades-in-arms,
they can invite you to become a more permanent member.
So the mercenary feature is good for both solo players looking for a Team
and Teams that don’t have enough people.
Playing as a mercenary you will receive both the thrill of exciting battles
and the rightful amount of credits and experience.
However, to receive Team rating points, you’ll have to join an existing Team,
or maybe become a leader and gather your own members.
Having analyzed game tournaments,
we identified a number of common problems and tried to solve them in Team Battles.
...All the problems are connected with the commander's personality
and relationships between people.
If the commander behaves in an agreeable way—everyone is happy, if not—everyone is unhappy.
In this regard, we tried to change the social component of this interaction
and introduced the role of the "leader."
A leader does not have absolute power:
most decisions in the team, like accepting new members or expelling some players,
will be made based on a vote.
So a decision needs to be approved by the majority of the team.
We hope this new feature will help reduce tension between team members.
Team Battles have complex functionality which affects virtually everything:
from slight details that help you feel comfortable in the game,
to major solutions that happen behind the scenes...
We’ve done a huge amount of work to create Team Battles.
But we realize that the feature was made for players —
without them, Team Battles wouldn’t exist.
So we’re interested in hearing their thoughts and proposals during the first testing season,
and we will definitely be improving the feature.
Team Battles include a new basic set of capabilities for players,
which will be expanded further.
Our developers will be able to better understand how this feature should evolve
if a lot of players provide us with their impressions.
For this to happen, we need you, beginners and experienced sea dogs, to start using it.
So it's in your hands now!
Good luck in Team Battles!