World of Warships Dev Tracker

Ah, I understand. You were described the wording issue, not the shift in gameplay concept.

In effect, if the Dev Team had decided "Meh, they're not using them so let's just get rid of them." then it would have been overtly bizarre. That method would seem crazy to established players, sure.

Without going into test feedback, I cannot agree with this statement. I've read the thoughts of multiple veteran players and she seems to provide a unique enough experience to stand out, which is the goal with most new ships. New ships ideally provide different ways to interact with the game and different experiences, even thought many aspects may be similar.

This is the process I learn from. It would be nice if it were shorter and I seemed less stubborn throughout, but it's just the grind of me getting information and processing it.

In the end, it's useful information to review with the other CMs and see if there's anything we can come up with to help.

The buff isn't small. 10 second reload -> 9 second reload is an 11% increase in output. Further, the 17% reduction in shell dispersion is something around a 33% reduction in the area to the Dispersion ellipse. That's before the Slot 6 US BB Accuracy Upgrade of another 11% would be applied.

It's more shells fired and more shells hitting.

Initially, I read this thread as a frustration boil over at seeing a Secondary-capable ship being made less Secondary-capable. This is not uncommon as players that enjoy Secondaries really enjoy Secondaries. My assessment still feels that the core of this thread is around frustration at the loss of an improved secondary-concept even though it never made it to live and has never been touched outside of testers.

The issue with language was not something I expected at all. I'll speak with the other CMs about this thread and the language issue that's been brought up. There may be a delay as Austin iced over and many of the team are without power, so it's kinda sketchy at the current moment.

This relates back to removing improved Secondaries even though there are players that LOVE Secondaries? I don't think this should be taken as a personal slight or oversight.

I don't have the image in front of me, but I believe th...

I can't agree that the wording is nonsensical. That being said, as LWM point out, that could be because I'm internally translating Dev-speak of a sort. It might mean that a step or two is missed in the translation.

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I already broke down the blurb in a DM chain with Sailor_Moon. It reads sensibly to me, though perhaps because of Dev-translation. Please read this and see if it makes sense in this way:

To me the language really doesn't seem all the different. It was more that it was expounded on a bit further, though Sailor_Moon did describe it as helpful.

The irony here is that the Community team has been requesting for additional blurbs to go along with changes so that they help with understanding. This blurb's entire purpose is to be open and helpful in explaining what is a semi-significant adjustment to the concept of the ship. Saying that you'd rather it not exist in the first place just means encouraging the practice of releasing change data and saying nothing else.

Personally, I was very happy that we were able to provide an insight blurb into the changes for the Louisiana and the Grau. I thanked the folks that wrote them because I was excited that we were giving more insight and I felt that's helpful.

She is as of this particular DevBlog. But she's not Final and she's about to enter a round of testing to see if the concept works or not. DevBlogs about ships in Testing are always subject to change.

I stepped into this thread to try to help speak to the change written in the DevBlog. By the nature of commenting on something which is subject-to-change, there is no finality in that statement.

As with any notable deviation from the norm, it goes where it goes. The ship is in testing to see what works and what doesn't. This is one reason why we don't comment on Test Ships, because everything can quite literally change in a single DevBlog if the concept doesn't bear out and something else is tried.

When I read this, the referencing of "envisioned concept for this ship" doesn't make sense. The original iteration was a ship that has secondaries as notable part of its kit, which is why it was given improved secondaries. The announced new iteration doesn't have improved secondaries because it is a different conceptual iteration. Iteration can occur rapidly during Testing and could mean sweeping concept changes if needed. The language I quoted above does not seem accurate to me because it indicates a final concept before the concept is finalized.

In most cases, the initial concept may function all the way through testing with occasional tweaks and touchups to flesh it out. In other cases an initial concept is abandoned and something entirely different occurs. The end goal is a concept that fits well in the game and provides an experience that can be enjoyed.

I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated that Illinois MUST be...

I will be honest in that I don't understand the amount of vitriol that I'm reading in this thread. If we look at the path the Illinois has taken so far:

Start: Illinois is a 203mm gun Battleship that is interesting. The concept has been requested for years and get slated on our internal roadmap for creation and implementation.

Initial Concept: The initial hull is a Battleship hull that has weaknesses. In direct confrontation in might not withstand overmatch that exists from some battleships she could see. Also, the DPM is intriguing but the Battleship dispersion is a bit of a limitation. As such, she's given improved secondary capability as a value add. It's not uncommon to see secondaries married with weaker caliber main turrets (see: Pommern at the same tier with improved accuracy at the expense of shell size). Also, Slot 3 could use the Secondary Focused Upgrade as an option instead of the +range Slot 3 (because shell float could b...

Some players are diligent in that fashion, but the majority of our testing data comes from players being players and just playing games in the ship. Test ships are granted to volunteers/participants in various programs, but they aren't the sole focus of any specific test group outside of internal playtesting.

Test data is best when it approximates real-world application. We balance to Random Battles and use actual outcomes/data from the ship being played in Random Battles throughout our testing/balancing process.

You can learn more about our Balancing process in this video:

Players are aware there are secondaries on most every ship in the game, sure. However, people see "Holy crap, it's a Battleship with 203's!" and think, "I'm going to go use the 203's on a Battleship!". It's the thing that stands out and ends up being seen as the defining feature of the ship.

Gandolf-the-Grey was unavailable, so Gaishu-the-Purple tried to ward off the dragon. Unfortunately, shouting "YOU SHALL NOT CAP!" didn't stop the beast.

Honestly, it seems as though most testers didn't even know about the Secondaries. The highlight of the ship was spammy 203's on a Battleship hull, so she was mostly played as a main-gun oriented ship.

The changes put in place moved focus to the main guns as that's what's standing out to players.

Commanders!

Recently, WG NA (and the surrounding city) was attacked by an evil Frost Dragon!

Many Trees and Power Lines were slain (or covered in Frost Dragon boogies).

As such, we won't be having a Community Stream tonight :(

You can catch some WoWs-Weekly-Streaming-Action tomorrow with our friends in EU!

Also, thank you all so much for the kind words! Reading how much a few of you enjoyed this brings a tear to the eye.

One of the benefits of working for Wargaming. :)