In the new episode of Waterline, we talk about the future of superships in our game.
In Update 0.10.5, Superbattleships appeared in World of Warships. It represented our view of how military shipbuilding could have evolved if the decision had been made to continue building powerful artillery ships. As part of the temporary "Grand Battle" game event, players were able to try out two superbattleships: the Japanese Satsuma and the German Hannover.
The outcome of the Grand Battle showed that tier IX and X ships were able to capably stand up to superships, and the newcomers themselves were warmly received by our players.
We often get questions about when superships will appear in the game again and we are happy to announce that in Update 0.10.10 they will be available to use in Ranked Battles.
The upcoming season of Ranked Battles will take place in a 7 vs 7 format on tier X ships and superships. The season will take place without submarines, and for the matchmaker, there will be standard class restrictions. Superships will be "mirrored" by the matchmaker.
New superships
In update 0.10.10, in addition to the Satsuma and the Hannover, there will be four more superships with their own unique features:
Japanese Superdestroyer Yamagiri — This Superdestroyer will have a unique mechanic to switch between two Torpedoes types in battle. which differ by various parameters such as range, speed, and damage
The following Superships will introduce a new Autoloader mechanic, which means after pressing a key, the player can switch to a special firing mode with which separate turrets can fire several consecutive salvos in rapid succession before being subjected to a long reload:
- French Supercruiser Conde.
- American Supercruiser Annapolis.
- Soviet Superdestroyer Zorky.
Hannover and Satsuma will have updated adjustment fire mechanic. Now if you filled the adjustment fire bar, you need to press a special key to activate the characteristics bonus. This will allow players to control the use of the bonus and get it at the right time.
Over the last few years, gameplay development for World of Warships was focused on a "horizontal progression" — adding new mechanics, branches, or ships with unique peculiarities (such as hybrids). But this framework, which was conceived many years ago, can only accommodate so many new concepts.
Along with superships, we aim to add new special mechanics to the game to give a new gameplay experience beyond the usual progression. These new mechanics are aimed at diversifying decision making during combat and game tactics.
We decided that super ships and their mechanics, given the interest in them, may well become a full-fledged part of the game. We want to introduce something for all existing branches of ships by making a continuation for them in the form of superships. Given the very essence of superships as a "development" of already familiar ships, we think it would be most appropriate to place them in the Tech Tree as a continuation of their respective branches. In addition to the logic of this continuation, we also believe that because of the superiority of superships in terms of technical characteristics over their "predecessors", superships do not fit into tier X.
The expansion of the Tech Tree will greatly increase the variability of battles and introduce completely new mechanics. In addition, some of these mechanics may be added to the lower tier ships in the future. Right now, tier X is the most popular tier among players, and its popularity will only grow. Therefore, we want it to continue to give players variety in gameplay with various new mechanics.
We want to make obtaining superships simple and clear, accessible to all who wish to use them and not harming those who reset branches in the Research Bureau. Therefore, you will need only 1 XP point to research a supership after researching a tier X ship. The credit cost of buying the super ship itself will be about 1.5 - 2.5 the cost of buying a tier X ship. Therefore, players will not need to play much on a tier X ship to be able to explore superships, but will need to invest credits.
This expansion of the Tech Tree is a big and important step for our game, and based on our previous experience, we do not plan to immediately add superships for all nations and in Random Battles. Instead, we will start with Ranked Battles, and we will decide on further steps and implementation of superships as we go along. We will keep a close eye on the results of Ranked Battles involving superships, as well as your feedback. We will share details about Ranked Battles results and possible changes to the very concept of the new ships if they will be necessary.
Supership Economics
One of the most important aspects of adding superships to the game is their combat economics - the income per battle and maintenance costs. Over the years of development of the game, the economics have significantly "accelerated" due to various bonuses and economic signals, and credit earning has become easier even on the most expensive tier to maintain - tier X. And this has had a significant effect on their popularity.
In the case of superships, we decided to change this approach, both to ensure that superships don't become too popular in matchmaking and to ensure that tier X ships will have an economic advantage over them. Therefore, superships will have a high maintenance cost, about twice as high as that of tier X.
However, combat economics depends on many factors and requires a lot of data, so at the moment we have not made a final decision on it. In this regard, in the upcoming Ranked season, super ships will neither earn nor consume credits.
We will share the final details on the combat economics as soon as they become available.
Please note that all information in the development blog is preliminary and subject to change during testing. Any showcased features may or may not end up on the main server. The final information will be published on our game's website.