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In this post we bring you three pieces of major news:
A new system of ship upgrades: Naval Training Center;
Rework of Consumables: Premium consumables become Free;
Matchmaker improvements: Limits for battles tier.
Naval Training Center
It is no secret that the framework of our game is based on the progress from tier to tier and reaching the top of the branch - the tier X ship. At the same time, events such as "snowflakes" for the New Year showed that veteran players are interested in playing different ships of different tiers, however, the game does not sufficiently encourage it.
We are glad to present to you a new part of the game - Naval Training Center. Now you can strengthen a ship of tier VI+ (absolutely any - premium, ARP, obtained for coal or acquired for free experience). Improvements are sequential, not selective. This means you first have to apply a level 1 upgrade to a ship before you can apply level 2 etc.
However, this requires a special resource that can be only be obtained by resetting progress in a fully researched branch of the nation and experiencing it again from tier I. A special interface will allow you to sell all the ships of the branch according to the standard rules and cancel their research, all with one click. Upgrades, signals, flags and camouflage will be removed/demounted and sent to the Inventory, commanders retain their specialization and sent to the Reserve, and the experience gained on the ships will be transferred to the tier 1 ship in that national tech tree. You can activate 'Naval Training Center' if you have at least two researchable tier X ships.
Through 're-researching', buying and winning the first battle in each ship of a chosen branch, you will receive a new special resource that can be used to improve ships of tier VI - X. Part of these resources will be tied to the nation of the ships used to acquire it and can be used to improve ships of that nation. The other part of these resources will work similarly to free experience and can be spent on any tier VI+ ships, even those in nations that do not have a branch of researchable ships.
Please note that the values below may change based on test results!
In one season, you can reset progress in a limited number of branches with an additional restriction on the nation. The season itself lasts for a few months. To achieve 3 levels of improvements/bonuses for one ship, a player will be required to participate in several seasons and will likely have to reset progress in branches within that nation multiple times.
Let's look at an example in which you want to earn the first level of bonuses for your favorite ship. The numbers in this example are conditional.
Let's say you chose a Minotaur cruiser.
To obtain the first level requires 10 units of resource of Britain.
You drop any branch of Britain, for example, destroyers.
You 're-explore' it again, from Black Swan to Daring, and on the way earn 12 units of a resource of the UK and 2 units of a universal resource.
You spend 10 units of resource of the UK to achieve level 1. To improve Minotaur on level 2, you should have 20 units of the resource.
Alternatively, you may choose to spend the earned special resource to apply another Level 1 bonus to your as yet unimproved Tier VII RN Premium Ship 'Duke Of York'.
The choice is yours.
Please note; You CANNOT spend resources earned on one nation (in this example RN/UK ships) on other nations. But you WILL gain universal resources similar to Free EXP that can be spent on other nations.
If you do not have time to research an entire branch in one season, don't worry — your progress will be saved. To re-research the branch, you will follow the same standard rules as the first time. As if it had just been released.
In clan competitive modes, the possible levels of bonus/improvement that can be used in combat will be limited. Levels that exceed this limit will be inactive and not applied in competitive battles.
Improvements and bonuses to aircraft carriers and AA through the Naval Training Center will NOT be possible upon its introduction. Due to recent air defense changes, more time is needed to determine the optimal potential improvements for this class.
Rework of Consumables
Two risks of the new system are an increased economic burden on users and an increase in the gap in combat effectiveness. In this regard, we are pleased to announce that we are making Premium Consumables free. Standard (non-premium) ones will be removed from the game. This will significantly reduce deduction of credits after each battle, and make the game much more comfortable for those who can not afford to constantly use Premium Consumables. Note that presently, if we take tier X battles as an example, more than 50% of games there are played without premium consumables mounted.
Matchmaker improvements
In other news — the long-awaited improvements of the matchmaker are on their way. According to the current plan, they will be carried out in two stages.
The first stage — strict restrictions placed on getting into battles at a certain tier. The matchmaker will remember the percentage of entries to battles of tiers +0, + 1 and + 2 for each player at each tier. After a small "calibration", which will take up to 20 battles, MM will begin to ensure that these percentages do not exceed the established norm. Of course, this is primarily aimed at the problem of being "bottom tier" too frequently, especially when playing at tier VIII. For example, at the start it is planned to set a limit of 40% for fights with ships +2 tiers higher for tier VIII. This means that soon after the update, and having played around 20 battles, each player will stop encountering Tier Xs when in their Tier VIIIs in more than 40% of Battles.
Another benefit of the change - a reliable interruption of a 'bottom tier streak', because the matchmaker will analyze the last 20 battles the player has played each time they enter the queue. It means that, after calibration, a long series of battles as bottom tier, which quite often affects players, will become impossible within one tier of the selected ship. From 20 battles at tier VIII there will be no more than 8 battles against tens.
The second phase of improvements, which will be followed by a later adjustment of the distribution of the tier of ships in a single battle. One unpleasant situation — is to be the only player on a tier VIII ship in a tier X battle. If the battle has accumulated a sufficient number of eights and nines, the player has more opportunity for effective play. When this improvement is implemented, the matchmaker will have restrictions and rules on the tiers of ships selected to battle. For example, for tier X battles it could be something like "at least 4 eights and a maximum of 5 tens per team".
These are important and helpful improvements that will increase the number of "mono tier" battles. We would not like to allow an overabundance of such battles, so at first we will carefully approach the new settings.
We understand that after the announcement you will have questions that we will try to answer in the near future: soon we will publish a list of the most popular questions with answers to them, and this Thursday at 18:00 CEST we will conduct a stream, where we will talk in more detail about these innovations!
Please note that the information in the Development Blog is preliminary.