Hello everyone,
this is the exclusive Wot-News interview with Ivan Morozov, one of the World of Warships developers. Please note that I tried to translate everything correctly, but I don’t know the naval terms even in English. Also, if you are confused by some of the answers (like “what did he mean by that”) – well, so am I. Here’s what he said:
Do you publish a lot of info about World of Warships?
We publish several entries per week on our blog, we do tell about the game and its development. There, you can find out about the game mechanics, get an idea about the state of the game from fresh screenshots or read regular reports from alphatest either from tester reports or from the infographics. Apart from various kinds of content posting, the developers simply talk directly to the blog readers, answering their questions using videos or interviews online. So, to answer your question – yes, we publish a lot about World of Warships. Especially given the fact that the project is still in the alpha testing stage.
Can you tell us what the WoWs ship classes will look like?
We can tell, but you have to see it with your own eyes. Of course a tanker will get the associations immediately: battleship – that’s a heavy tank, destroyer – that’s a “scout”, aircraft carrier is “artillery and cruiser is like a tank destroyer. But after even a few battles in WoWs, it becomes clear that using WoT tactics will surely lead to defeat.
Sea battles were fought according to their own rules, which were used for the core of WoWs game mechanics. That’s why there is no principles matching with World of Tanks mechanics apart from the general rules. The role of “scouts” is fulfilled by scout planes and destroyers can completely destroy a huge battleship with one good torpedo salvo. Interaction between classes of ships and effective set of tactics are also implemented completely differently. For example, traditional TD tactic – hide and snipe – is principially impossible in WoWs. Firstly – because a ship staying on one spot will be quickly destroyed and secondly, because of the difference in damage dealing system, that is described below. All these differences might seem unusual,but they will certainly not disappoint the tankers.The possibility to deploy smoke screens, deploy air attacks or cover your teammates with AA fire screen mean that the strategists will find their room to maneuver.
How big will the teams and maps be?
We are currently experimenting with team sizes, we are considering variants in range from 12 to 18 players. The optimal solution is tied to the map size – in our case, they will be 50km x 50km big.
Will the maps differ from the WoT ones, or will the islands play the role of “cover”?
They will be different – our map settings will be gorgeous. Generally, design of the game maps for WoWs is a separate topic, complicated and interesting. Just like in World of Tanks are the elements of landscape supposed to help the player, to determine the tactics and to decide the dynamics of the battle. In our case, they stimulate the player to maneuver actively and to react instantaneously. For example, tropical maps with a lot of small islands and shallow water force the heavy ships to pick their route very carefully, so they don’t get stuck in narrow straits much to the amusement of the enemy. But light ships have a sort of an advantage here: they can maneuver freely, sail through shoals and even fire torpedos through them.
The situation then changes on another map and those who had the advantage before will be forced to be much more careful.
There are no camo bushes on open sea. How will the ships mask themselves? How will the visibility system different from the tank one?
Spotting and visibility mechanics as a whole will depend a lot on the design location. A player can hides behind islands, rocks and hills, but this kind of camo system, as I said before, is different from the one in WoT. You can’t just hide and stop the engines – a static ship is a dead ship. You also have to consider ballistics. Since the shell flies through a sharp ballistic curve (SS: not sure about the proper naval term, basically a high-angle shot like the arty uses in WoT), the closer to the land the player is, the better he is protected. By the way, I already mentioned smokescreen, that’s in fact also a landscape element. Setting it on the right spot, the player creates an artificial cover for his team and in fact he changes the layout of the map according to his needs. Other game possibilities, that affect the visibility system, are currently being developed.
What’s the current WoWs status? When will it enter closed beta stage?
Currently, WoWs is in closed alpha stage. That means that the game is now available to a small group of players, which help us to polish the main elements of the gameplay before we can open the door to all who want to try.
How can we now get into the alpha test?
There are several ways. You can leave your request on the forum, but in order for it to be considered, you have to post 50 and more posts on the WoWs forums. There are other options as well however. We are constantly running lotteries for alpha access on the forums, the blog and the WoWs VK group. Be active on our sites, that increases your chance of getting in compared to others.
What nations are available on alpha-test? What nations are planned in general?
Currently the players are testing the ships of two nations: Japan and USA. These will be implemented when the game is released. This answer can hardly raise eyebrows: at the beginning of WW2, these countries were rightfully considered foremost naval military powers. After the game is released, we will add other nations into the game. What definitely has to appear in WoWs are the branches of Great Britain, Germany, Russian Empire/Soviet Union, France and Italy. There is also an idea of a “small nations” tree. Many countries in those years couldn’t boast with an advanced fleet, but they had very unusual projects. By bringing together the ships of Holland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Austrian-Hungary and Greece, we can get a very interesting and well balanced development tree.
Will there be “dings”? How will the damage system work? Will the ships have weakspots such as the KV-5 miniturret?
The damage system in WoWs considers many factors such as thickness of the armor, its slope, the point where the shell meets the obstacle, angle of impact, velocity and penetration capability of the shell. The difference from tanks is that the armor of the ship is not homogenous and is different on various parts of the ship, so in order to destroy the ship engine, you will have to penetrate 3-4 layers of armor of various thicknesses. Naturally, vital parts and equipment such as engine, ammunition storage and command center are protected by the thickest armor, but hitting them will cause significantly more damage than hitting for example the rear of the ship. That means that “oneshots” in WoWs are possible, but difficult to achieve. If you achieve a direct hit on the ammunition storage, consider the enemy already sunk.
The “didn’t penetrate their armor” situation can occur in a few cases. For example when picking a shell with penetration poorer than what is needed to beating your opponent:
Or when you choose the attack range poorly. Every ship has its “zone of free maneuver” – that’s the distance on which it is practically invulnerable to enemy shells. We described this mechanic in detail on our blog earlier.
How will the battle dynamic be compared to other WG projects? Will there be “hugging”?
It’s possible to say that the WoWs gameplay will go at slower pace, when compared to the other games of the “World of” series. But it won’t be boring! Even when playing on a relatively small destroyer, you will have to successfully keep switching between main guns and torpedos, while creating smokescreens and shooting enemy planes with your AA guns (AI helps with that) while not forgetting to maneuver actively, evading enemy fire. As you can see, it will be very important in the game to reach the right pace and keep it until the end of the match.
“Hugging” in classical sense will be impossible. First, the enemy can carry torpedos and cut it short by one click. Second, by assuming static position you become a perfect target. But when it comes to ships, there is the interesting concept of free maneuver range – within that distance range, causing significant damage to your ship gets a lot harder. That can be used as much as military ethics and shell reload time allow you.
How will ramming work?
Just like the common sense tells you: the rammed ship will sink! By the way, for many players the ramming became the first way to destroy the enemy (and sometimes a teammate). These pieces of info and many others can be learned when you subscribe to the World of Warships developer blog. Stay tuned!
Very interesting. I for one, am looking forward to World of Warships CBT, which should be a lot more fun compared to my World of Warplanes CBT experience.
Also, can anyone clarify if one “fleet” comprises of your teammates (i.e you control one ship out of 15-20)
OR
Do you control more than 1 ship (2-5)? In a large “fleet” of maybe 40 ships, which other ships are also controlled in groups by individual players?
I bet that you only control one ship and MM tries to make proper fleet of available destroyers, cruisers and battleships.
I suppose that seems more likely. I’m worried how team dependent players will be in World of Warships. If your incompetent battleship players are sunk right off the bat (similar to how there is a trend of bad Russian Tier X heavy drivers on the NA WOT server which screw teams over) , you will probably be against the odds.
Also, are planes completely AI controlled? They should just merge WOWS and WOWP. Planes are added to any battle queue with a carrier(s) involved. They are in the same battle. But code (coordinates, degree of orientation, ship health) sent between both clients should allow ship movement data to be sent and represented in the WOWP client, and this will allow pilots to also have the objective of defending their own carrier, while sinking the enemy’s. IDK, I like this idea, okay?
WG said once that someday they will merge all “World of” games together. Planes and Warships go hand in hand but I don’t see tanks there with Warships. Maybe airdrop few Tigers into battleship deck and have some lol’s?
And they’re going to introduce CW global map where you need to claim harbor (or whatever it is, I don’t play CW) with WoWs first, then secure airspace in WoWP and finally assault it in WoT. It’s coming soon™.
They will merge them together in CW and account system not gameplay.
Yeah as Ken said I think it’s only the unified economy system and free xp/gold stuff. I’m pretty sure a lot of elite tanker clans would be dead mad if they had to play shitty World of Warplanes just to secure a land zone.
>suppose that seems more likely. I’m worried how team dependent players will be in World of Warships.
welcome to NF, there you had no MM or better you could (as host) balance the game by yourself. Even in a mirror match one team usually got dominated because one team had the bigger lvl 90 noobs.
Yes, ofcourse you’ll only play one ship :P
No Warthunder model either xD
I really want to play this game so bad!
Hope FTR will keep release the news about this game more.
SS; I think that you can basically scrape World of Warplanes news, but WoWS seems far more interesting :) :)
sharp ballistic curve = Parabolic curve?
“zone of free maneuver” = Immunity zone
From what we’ve been told, WoWS should be a great game :)
Hope you will post more stuff on it in the future
Steep is the correct term ;) .
WTF Russia had a Navy after 1904?
The Russian navy stayed quite large, even in WW2. Shipwise it was very similar to the US navy before it got it’s shit togther – woefully outdated capital ships, but lots of modern support vessels.
Lots of WW1 or Pre WW1 battleships and a number of cruisers and destroyers
3 modernised WWI vintage Gangut class battleships, along with a number of modern cruisers and destroyers.
By the end of WWII is can be considered the 4th largest fleet (depending on the criteria)
VMF(SSSR)
Cant wait to play this sounds like it could be a real winner
>> How can we now get into the alpha test?
There are several ways. You can leave your request on the forum, but in order for it to be considered, you have to post 50 and more posts on the WoWs forums. There are other options as well however. We are constantly running lotteries for alpha access on the forums, the blog and the WoWs VK group. Be active on our sites, that increases your chance of getting in compared to others.
Well, after waiting for a year i got tired with it and i stopped. I haven’t gotten into alpha first try and i most probably ever won’t – i don’t have all the time in my live just to post for the purpose of posting and licking the candy through the window. I DO visit US WoWs forum ocassionally but only for “social” entertainment.
So, good luck to all trying but don’t get your hopes high.
Actually, they only send alpha-test invitations to RU players recently.
Cruiser as a TD, not realy. Maybe battlecruiser or pocket battleship, but certainly not in a BFG way.
Remove arty from tanks, it belongs in WoWs.
I keep hearing aircraft carriers are not like WOT arty. Let’s hope so.
Well Aircraft carriers will probably be like arty in the sense that they will be attacking people who can’t attack the carrier back directly, but they will be different in that you will have AA guns on your ship that can shoot down attacking planes as well as your own carriers being able to deploy fighters to counter bombers.
Looking forward to this game, can’t wait to enter CBT. Since WoWP drew me away from WoT which I stopped playing, I suppose WoWS will drew me away from WoWP.
failplanes drew you away from wot?, wow you must be that 0.1% there…
that game is deader than saddam and has more ail than the iraqui information minister.
And i dont doubt WOWS will pull a ton of people in
Personally I consider WoT to be the fail lately and WoWP’s only problem is the number of players and the skill of those already there, many don’t have a clue what to do…
Wow, lots of players consider WOWP inferior to WT. You must dedicated.
Its really not that bad as of late, the last few patches have really improved it, however it’s forever tainted by the constant “WARTHUNDAR BETTAR” fanboys who tried it near release or in beta where it wasn’t that good so they constantly trash talk it.
So really the only thing really wrong with it is the lack of players.
I played WT and I really didn’t like it, too random, pace is really slow and the P2W element is bigger than in WoT and WoWP. Plus the unnecessary complicated research system and other elements.
Intristing Reading
Most of these things if you pay atettion to the forums are already known but this interview summaries it all
Hope for CBT fast fast fast cause it has Ships :D and ofc the possibility of my countries ships be into game is also nice :)
What i fear the most is that they’re stalling this game too much, it’s far too delayed for it’s own good.
it’s been in alpha for what, a year already?, there’s so much you can advance with a reduced number of tesers, they should move to mass CBT in a month or two at the most.
But from what V.kisly said, it will be released “next year” and that’s bull (i do wonder if by then we’ll have WT naval forces, which seems plausible as gaijin doesnt wastes time wanking).
i also applied for alpha and never got in, that lottery is from RU forum only… and that 50 (valid)post “active” rule is crap, i mean, what’s there to post on a game that is in CLOSED ALPHA with NDA?, everything that’s to be asked has been asked already now all that remains is for them to fucking release the fucking game already!
There are plenty with people with quite a lot of posts.
Speculative tech trees, historical articles, discussion about potential features and tactics.
why would you discuss tactics on an unreleased game when we dont know the gameplay?, it’s meaningless
historical articles yeah,… there is so much not wenough to fill posts.
and discussion about “potential” features is again meaningless
Well naval battles follow a cohesive pattern, and there are a number of battles from the period that can be studied, and using historical data viable tactics for certain ships can be formulated based around what we know from various sources, such as the Dev blog, articles such as these and the Q&A.
There is actually, given the sheer numbers of ships, and the fact that individual ships did more than one tank or one plane.
Not true, the debate about submarines has been going on since the forums basically opened. Other discussions include the use of torpedoes on capital ships, mines and PT boats.
“Currently the players are testing the ships of two nations: Japan and USA. These will be implemented when the game is released. This answer can hardly raise eyebrows”
How bout freaking Naval power #1 back than UK?
I bet they chose the starting nation with how many players those nations will bring rather than their naval importance in WWII.
Come to think of it, UK didn’t have that many Naval engagements at all in WWII…
mfg eX
They may have add Germany and British ships together which makes sense.
The order is: US&Japan, UK, Germany&Russia.
FYI, NA branch is working hard to bring more people into test. Join us on forum now so that you might get into alpha or early beta :P
I want Uboats!
no subs..
I actually discovered WoT when I was looking for a naval game to play. I miss games like Task Force 1942, the Great Naval Battles saga or Fighting Steel, and doing an Internet search I discovered that a game called World of Warships was on development, and that led me to WoT.
After almost a year, I have bad feelings about WoWs. World of Warplanes (which I also tried) has been a big fiasco, and WoT is going downhill with every new patch, with 9.0 being a disaster. Seems like Wargaming has lost the touch, and I have lost faith in WoWs being any different than their current trend.
My question is: WHY DIDN’T HE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT SUBMARINES?!!
I was waiting for that part T.T I mean, they could practically be another kind of “tank destroyers” in WoW world.
Because there aren’t going to be submarines in the game :)