Software Update: World of Warships 0.8.5

World of Warships comes from wargaming, the creator of World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, Master of Orion, and Total War: Arena. World of Warships is a team battle game with ships in different classes, such as destroyers, cruisers and battleships. For more information and player experiences, please refer to this topic on our Forum. The changes of this release with number 0.8.5 are as follows:

Update 0.8.5: Rogue Wave

With Update 0.8.5, World of Warships takes you into a post-apocalyptic future. What’s coming your way? Nine modified destroyers, four-team battles for Fuel Tokens, a new Clan Battle format, the return of the Ranked Battle Sprint, improved matchmaking, and much more!

ROGUE WAVE EVENT
The reasons why this once thriving civilization crumbled into ruins have faded from most survivors’ memories, but what remains makes a perfect arena for ruthless battles. In the desolation-themed port you’ll find modified destroyers that have been created specifically for the new unusual four-team battle format. The objective in this game mode is very simple—a team of three players needs to destroy three opposing teams. You can fight either in a Division or solo. Each “Savage Battle” starts on the outskirts of the destroyed city. At the beginning of battle your ship carries no consumable charges, as the world is on the brink of collapse and everyone is constantly forced to fight for the limited resources. Replenish your consumables by activating bonus areas, and beware of the Wild Fire slowly engulfing the aquatorium.

MATCHMAKING IMPROVEMENTS
Update 0.8.5 introduces a soft limit on the number of Tier VIII carriers in Tier VIII–IX battles. Now, during the first minute of waiting, no more than one aircraft carrier can be placed in each team. When the second minute of waiting starts, teams will be limited to two aircraft carriers; with the third minute of waiting, the limit raises to three carriers that can join each team.

The change will reduce the number of battles with two or more aircraft carriers per team, and mostly affect Tier VI ships: now they won’t have to face two Tier VIII aircraft carriers as often as before.

CLAN BRAWL
A new battle format for Clans—Clan Brawl—is on its way! In contrast to Clan Battles, Clan Brawls take place throughout a single day, with only victories being counted. Like in Clan Battles, players will compete to obtain Steel and other valuable items.

RANKED BATTLE SPRINT
Get ready for two new seasons of Ranked Battle Sprint, played in a 6 vs. 6 format with Tier VII ships. As before, ten ranks are divided into two leagues: the Second League includes Ranks 10 to 6, the First League—Ranks 5 to 1. Divisions consisting of two players are allowed in the Ranked Sprint. Prepare your Tier VII ships!

IMPROVEMENTS TO THE GAME MECHANICS
Update 0.8.5 brings updated mechanics for damage infliction to ships’ bulges, secondary battery and torpedo tube modules, and to the completely destroyed parts of a ship. Now, when a shell penetrates a secondary battery module, a torpedo tube module, or a completely destroyed part of a ship, the dealt damage will be 10% of the maximum shell damage value. 100% of this damage can be restored using the Repair Party consumable. However, shells don’t affect AA modules, and these can only be destroyed by explosions of HE shells, as before. Have you ever received a “Penetration” ribbon for hitting an enemy ship’s bulge, but the hit caused no damage to the enemy’s HP? We are now introducing a new ribbon in order to avoid misleading our players. For penetrating a torpedo bulge without hitting the next layer of armor, a special ribbon will be given to a player—for shells, bombs, and rockets. We’ve also renamed the torpedo protection armor elements which used to be called “Ship Plating.” These are now called “Torpedo Protection.”

GAME BALANCE CHANGES
Previously, in Update 0.8.4, AA defense mounts inflicted permanent damage to a randomly selected aircraft in a squadron per a set frequency. This concept allowed ships to cause damage to the entire squadron. So, if the aircraft hovered over a ship too long, her AA defenses could shoot down most of them. However, if a squadron was flying over a ship for a short amount of time, there were situations when all the aircraft were damaged, but not a single plane was brought down. To make the destruction of aircraft more consistent, AA defense mounts now inflict damage only to the last aircraft in the squadron. Thus, a player can be confident that their AA defenses are focused on a single target, shooting it down much quicker as a result. At the same time, most of a squadron’s aircraft will remain untouched during the attack, especially those in the attacking flight. The first planes in the squadron will receive damage only if a player is unable to avoid the shell explosions of AA defenses. The minimum speed when using the Engine Boost for all Tier IV to X aircraft has been changed. Now the aircraft decelerate by 26.25 knots instead of 17.5. Attack aircraft, as well as Japanese and German aircraft, decelerate by 30 knots instead of 20. The new Engine Boost parameters will help ensure the survivability of aircraft at the proper level, considering the changes to AA defenses introduced in the current and previous updates.

German Tier VIII aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin

• Torpedo damage has increased from 4,533 to 5,333 HP.
• Chance to cause flooding has increased from 25% to 29%.
• Bomb normalization has improved by 5 degrees.

Analysis of statistics showed that the enhancement of VIII Graf Zeppelin’s bombers in 0.8.4 wasn’t enough to balance her against other Tier VIII aircraft carriers. Reinforcing the torpedoes has increased the overall damage that can be caused, while the improved normalization has increased the effectiveness of armor penetration and slightly reduced the number of bombs being armed when they hit superstructures.

INTERFACE CHANGES
In Update 0.8.5, the Minimap will utilize new technology which will allow us to introduce improvements into the game faster and in a more efficient way. The following changes have already been introduced:

• Coordinates of the squares are now located along the upper and left borders of the Minimap.
• The Minimap rotation option has been moved to the in-battle Minimap settings.
• Last-known position markers of the enemy are now automatically enabled for all players.
• Only the long-range AA defense action radius is displayed on the Minimap.
• Display of hotkeys + and — has been removed.

The Minimap now displays only the most essential information, which prevents the player from getting lost in the large number of indicators. The layout of notifications about new content and news articles has been revised (you are reading our news in the game client, aren’t you?). Now, for new collection items, insignias, campaigns, and news—a new icon with a counter is used. We’ve also updated the look of notifications on the banners in the Port.

Three sequences of tips for newcomers have been added. They will show how to change battle type, where to find Commander skills, and how to research and purchase ship modules. The sequence about researching and purchasing a ship has new additional tips. The display of collections has been changed. Now they are sorted by completion date, while completed collections have been moved to the left side of the screen.