We want to share some details regarding the decisions that lead to the format of the 14th season of Clan Battles, give some information about the ship restrictions, and tell you about how those restrictions affected the meta of the current season.
The ship limit system in Clan Battles was introduced in Update 0.10.1. Its main goal was to diversify gameplay in Clan Battles and support variability in team lineups.
Later, we'll share some detailed information on how the ship limit system works and what kind of parameters we consider to make decisions on ship restrictions in Clan Battles. But, for now, we want to focus on our decision to conduct the 14th season on Tier VI ships with the ability to take two aircraft carriers per team, what ship restrictions were in place in the current clan season, why we implemented them, and how they affected gameplay.
Reasons for choosing this seasons format
Clan Battles season "Piranha" takes place on Tier VI ships, with no more than two aircraft carriers and battleships in total per team. We wanted to try a new setup with two aircraft carriers and analyze its influence on battle outcome. Our goal was to give players more team composition variety in Clan Battles.
The first week of the current season showed that, in general, a two aircraft carrier setup was the norm in terms of popularity and effectiveness. Although Ryūjō and Erich Loewenhardt proved highly popular and efficient, we later fixed it by introducing restrictions on these 2 ships.
Nevertheless, player feedback on the two carrier setups was mostly negative before and after restrictions were applied. As a result, we have now decided not to allow more than one aircraft carrier per team in the upcoming seasons of Clan battles.
Moreover, Tier VI turned out to not be the optimal choice for the current season of Clan Battles. Our aim was to counter the fact that the season started in summer — when many people go on vacation and away from their PC. Therefore we chose to make the battle type more accessible to more players by bringing the tier down to VI — a more commonly played Tier than X. But as statistics show, the popularity of the battle type was the lowest in recent years. We observed a similar situation with season 10. Therefore, for now we decided not to hold further Clan Battles seasons with Tier VI ships.
Restrictions in the current season
After analyzing battles from the first week of Clan Battles season "Piranha," we decided to implement the following ship limits:
- Restriction on number: not more than two Perth, Mysore, Hunghe, Leander, and London in total per team.
- Restricted ships: Ryūjō, Erich Loewenhardt
Also from the start, ships Admiral Graf Spee and HSF Graf Spee were not allowed.
Reasons for restrictions.
Graf Spee ban
Graf Spee and HSF Graf were not allowed from the start based on statistics from Season 10 of Clan Battles. Graf Spee accounted for over half of the ships chosen, and it had quite a high win rate. All of this indicated that players found it to be a good, effective ship for Clan Battles on Tier VI and collectively chose her. This negatively affected season 10 of Clan battles, and we wanted to avoid the same situation in current season. That's why we decided to ban this ship from the start.
Ban of Ryūjō and Erich Loewenhardt
Our statistics from the first week showed us that these two aircraft carriers had a high win rate and were extremely popular — they were chosen in 83% of battles. They were effective both alone and when there were two of them per team. Based on this data, we decided to fully restrict them in Clan Battles.
Restrictions on the number of Perth, Mysore, Huanghe, Leander, and London
The main problem we wanted to solve with this restriction was the increasing use of cruisers with Smoke Generator. Huanghe especially stood out due to her powerful AA, making her a popular choice against teams with two aircraft carriers. Since we didn't want to fully restrict these ships, we decided to limit them to not more than two per team.
Impact of restrictions made and current state of the season
The decision to ban Ryujo and Loewenhardt lead to more varied and evenly distributed picks of other Tier VI aircraft carriers by the players. Moreover, both the popularity and the effectiveness of the dual-carrier setup have changed:
First week of the season (before we applied restrictions):
|
Setup/indicators |
popularity |
win rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2 aircraft carriers | 22.45% | 51.28% |
| 1 aircraft carrier + 1 battleship | 39.85% | 50.51% |
| 2 battleships | 37.71% | 48.85% |
3 weeks after applying restrictions:
|
Setup/indicators |
popularity |
win rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2 aircraft carriers | 4.08% | 46.45% |
| 1 aircraft carrier + 1 battleship | 34.11% | 50.14% |
| 2 battleships | 61.80% | 50.22% |
3 weeks after applying restrictions (Typhoon and Hurricane Leagues):
|
Setup/indicators |
popularity |
win rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2 aircraft carriers | 11% | 47.43% |
| 1 aircraft carrier + 1 battleship | 54% | 50.45% |
| 2 battleships | 35% | 50.15% |
Statistics were taken from all battles in all Leagues. As you can see, the restrictions managed to shake up the meta with two aircraft carriers per team in all Leagues.
Moreover, if we look the setup with two battleships per team became the most popular player choice, and at the same time more effective than before the restrictions were introduced. In highest Leagues - Typhoon and Hurricane - players mostly prefer 1 aircraft carrier + 1 battleship setup, and the efficiency of all three setups there is overall similar to the average across all Leagues.
After the restrictions on cruisers, players began to give more preference to other ships of this type and use new battle tactics. Moreover, since the number of battles with two aircraft carriers per team had decreased, the choice of Huanghe was no longer optimal. The ship is still quite popular, especially in the high leagues, but we are not planning to further limit it at the moment.
After the restrictions were introduced, we expected an increase in number of destroyers. However, it turned out that players take more than three destroyers in less than 10% of battles. As for the destroyers that stand out in popularity, these include Aigle and T-61. However, these ships do not stand out in terms of win rate and combat effectiveness, so at the moment we see no need to limit them.
As for battleships, currently we have not identified a ship that would need to be restricted. "Izmail" is somewhat more popular compared to other battleships in the current clan season, however, it does not stand out for its high efficiency and win rate.
While we do not see the need for further restrictions at this time, we continue to monitor the situation in the current Clan Battles season. If necessary, we will introduce additional restrictions and be sure to notify you about them in the Development Blog!