Genre: Shooter, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Tactical
World of Warships
Hot Fix: Testing and Bug Fixing
Anyone who plays video games encounters program errors sooner or later.
These types of errors have hindered players since the emergence of the gaming industry. We are used to them and not-so-affectionately nickname them "bugs." Bugs can be found everywhere, and World of Warships is no exception. Our project comprises millions of constantly updated lines of code, a huge amount of content, and a complex system of interactions between players' computers and our servers. All this creates a multitude of relationships in which mistakes can occur. Today, you will learn about how we reduce the number of bugs that reach the main server and how we fix those that are overlooked.
The term "bug" is probably familiar to most gamers.
A bug is an error that causes the actual result of a program's operation to differ from the expected one.
In the early days of the game, we divided bugs into two main types: bugs in the game content and bugs in the code. Now, there are many more types.
How Is Testing Performed?
Quality assurance (QA) teams are responsible for finding and fixing bugs in World of Warships.
QA departments exist in most World of Warships development teams. For example:
Content: Checking models, sounds, visuals, and more.
Game logic: Checking the correct operation of the game mechanics.
Server core: Checking the correct operation of the game servers.
QA's job is to understand how certain things are implemented in the game. To do this, they study the documentation and communicate with developers. After that, they develop testing processes and schemes that are used to check the program's compliance with its expected behavior.
Both negative and positive tests are carried out when testing the program:
Positive testing uses scenarios that match the normal, expected behavior of the program. For example, checking that a user can enter the game client upon entering the correct password.
Negative testing involves performing "incorrect" actions deliberately (abnormal scenarios). For example, checking if it is possible to log in to the game client by entering an incorrect password or leaving the password input field blank.
Other types of checks are carried out if deemed necessary: performance tests, user friendliness tests, and others.
In World of Warships, testing can be simplified into several main stages.
Internal testing:
Various types of functionality testing at all stages of functionality creation, such as:
Ideation
Design
Development
Integration testing, or checking that all the individual parts of the game work correctly when put together and added to the main game code. Testing an assembled build for obvious defects before an external test.
A build is a specific version of the game client that can also be used for testing.
Tracking absolutely all relationships and their results in various elements of such a large project as World of Warships is not possible even for the largest QA teams.
Therefore, external testing begins in parallel with the final stages of internal tests:
Testing of a pre-release build of the game by a small group of volunteers (Supertest and Clan Test).
Public testing, which is open to everyone.
External testing also allows us to check the operation of the game on a wide variety of computer and software configurations.
The World of Warships development team is also involved in external testing. We have a mechanism called "Traffic lights" in the studio. This is a special page that all teams fill out after playing on the Public Test Server. On this page, staff can leave feedback about each new tested version feature, as well as give it an assessment that is later taken into account when summing up the testing results.
Based on the results of external testing, we fix the last identified errors in the current build of the game. If it is impossible to fix the errors, we may even have to remove certain features from the coming update.
This was the case with Asymmetric Battles in Update 0.10.9. A bug that led to incorrect operation of the mode and required additional time to fix was discovered during the Public Test stage. As a result, the mode was removed from the update.
Occurrence of Bugs
Why do bugs occur on the Live Server? Bugs occur for a variety of reasons and at different development stages. From commonplace errors in the program code and the human factor to non-obvious interactions and errors at the stage of creating a design document for a new version.
An error may be present, for example, already at the stage of developing an idea and will still be considered a bug.
For example, the mechanics of temporary invulnerability of an aircraft carrier squadron immediately after an attack, which could earlier be used to overcome the enemy's air defense zone, can also be attributed to bugs. This particular use of the mechanic was not foreseen in the design stage of the aircraft carrier update and was later fixed.
To prevent similar situations, we try to start testing as early as at the stage of discussing new ideas.
In addition, game elements that work perfectly in isolation can "break" when combined with other game elements due to various interconnections and conflicts that arise.
For example, in one of the internal tests of the Ranked Battles update, we found that they caused errors in the operation of Clan Battles—players were not able to start a battle because matchmaking took an infinitely long time. The cause of this was not the most obvious relationship, but it was fortunately found and did not reach the Live Server.
Another cause of bugs—one that is rather difficult to track down—is the huge variety of our users' computer configurations, which, together with the complex client-server architecture, can lead to unexpected behavior of the game code on specific computers.
For example, in one update, due to the date format in Japan being different to the format used in Europe or America, the game code was not able to process this information, and the post-battle statistics were not displayed for some players.
What players consider to be a bug can sometimes not be a bug at all because the program behavior seen by players is actually the expected outcome. In such situations, it is important to analyze player feedback and, possibly, change something. The opposite can also be true—a bug can sometimes become part of the game and the decision not to fix it can be deliberate.
For example, the unique sound of X Shikishima's guns had an error in the audibility range setting (it could be heard at a greater range than was intended), and this error was fixed. However, you noticed that the sound lost its unique quality due to the fix, so we returned this "error" to the game.
Bugs can also be tentatively attributed to technical problems in data centers or Internet providers. Unfortunately, there is little that we can do in such situations, and we cannot always help players, regardless of whether we know the source of the problem.
It should be understood that it is impossible to track down absolutely all bugs. The result of the QA team's work is that a new functionality works as intended, without critical bugs and flaws, and that it can be released on the Live Server.
Fixing
Why do some bugs take so long to fix? The required time period for correcting a particular error depends primarily on its nature. Some defects require a significant investment of time as early as the error analysis stage. Indeed, in order to correct an error, we need to reproduce it accurately and understand the reason or reasons why this error occurred.
For example, a recent bug caused torpedoes to launch incorrectly when the launching ship was turning. This was a mistake in the game logic, and any changes and fixes to the game logic are always very risky because they affect absolutely all players and affect the very basis of the game—its gameplay.
Therefore, to fix such an error, it is necessary to accurately analyze player complaints and various reports, find the cause of the problem, and develop and verify a solution. In special cases, it can be necessary to rewrite the game code to fix a bug or optimize it using new technology. This process is called refactoring. Despite the fact that nothing seems to change from the player's point of view, this process takes quite a long time.
In addition, the time frame for correcting errors depends on the ways in which fixes are delivered to players. For example:
To fix some bugs, it is enough to make small fixes to the server side of the game, which most players will not even notice.
The situation is more complicated when the error also affects the player's client or it is necessary to carry out server maintenance to fix the error. In this case, a small patch can be prepared and additional work performed on the server. The server is not available to players during this time.
Fixing some bugs requires so many changes in the code and additional tests that fixes can only be released with the release of the next major game update.
The decision on how to deliver each fix and the priority of bug fixing is determined by numerous factors:
Bug severity: Inoperable Random Battles should be fixed as soon as possible, but a typo in the ship's performance specifications can wait a bit.
Scale: Some errors affect all players; other errors occur for one player out of a thousand.
Risks and necessary fix tests: As mentioned above, sloppy fixes in the game logic can only make things worse.
Time spent on server maintenance and the update size: To fix an error, we will need to turn off the server for several hours, and players will need to download quite a big patch. In such cases, it is worthwhile to think again how important it is to fix an error immediately because many players will not be able to enter the game for a long time.
Unfortunately, despite all of our desires to fix all possible bugs, the resources of the World of Warships team are finite, so we focus on fixing the most critical and frequently encountered bugs.
How to Report a Bug
You can always inform us about any errors you find via one of the following resources:
To help facilitate quicker and more efficient error fixing, please add the following to your report:
Error description.
Screenshot, video, replay, or any other visual confirmation of an error. If you attach a battle replay, make sure to indicate the timing of the error.
WGCheck file. Detailed information about this file is available in a separate article.
In today's article, we did our best to tell you about our "invisible front" in the fight against bugs in the simplest possible way. We want to thank you for your bug reports, feedback, participation in our tests, and playing World of Warships! Without your contribution, we would not have been able to quickly find and correct various errors that have occurred in the game.
Santa’s Gifts Are Here!
The Holiday Season is a time of celebrating, remembering, and gift-giving.
Claim your gifts, exchange New Year Certificates, and purchase containers—each of them drops something valuable: Doubloons, Coal, days of Warships Premium Account, camouflages, signals, or one of 134 ships!
Here's a list of the ships you can find in the containers
Tier X ships and rare ships
X Max Immelmann
X Thunderer
X Marceau
X Hayate
X Småland
X Salem
X Napoli
X Yoshino
X Moskva
X Smolensk
IX Missouri
IX Georgia
IX Jean Bart
IX Musashi
IX Benham
IX Neustrashimy
IX Friesland
IX Alaska
IX Kronshtadt
VIII Enterprise
VIII Massachusetts
VIII Lenin
VIII Asashio
VIII Mikhail Kutuzov
VII Z-39
VII Haida
VII Nelson
VII Flint
VII Belfast
VI Erich Loewenhardt
VI Admiral Graf Spee
VI T-61
Tier VIII and IX ships
IX Pommern
IX Marco Polo
IX Ägir
IX Azuma
IX Z-44
IX Groningen
VIII Saipan
VIII Indomitable
VIII Graf Zeppelin
VIII Kaga
VIII Alabama
VIII Constellation
VIII Vanguard
VIII Gascogne
VIII Champagne
VIII Flandre
VIII Tirpitz
VIII Roma
VIII Kii
VIII Borodino
VIII Congress
VIII Wichita
VIII Cheshire
VIII Tiger '59
VIII Belfast '43
VIII Bayard
VIII Prinz Eugen
VIII Mainz
VIII Atago
VIII Tone
VIII Ochakov
VIII Pyotr Bagration
VIII Irian
VIII Kidd
VIII Cossack
VIII Le Terrible
VIII Z-35
VIII Orkan
VIII Loyang
VIII Fenyang
VIII Siliwangi
Tier V–VII ships
VII Florida
VII California
VII Hood
VII Duke of York
VII Strasbourg
VII Scharnhorst
VII Ashitaka
VII Hyūga
VII Poltava
VII Atlanta
VII Indianapolis
VII Boise
VII München
VII Weimar
VII Duca degli Abruzzi
VII Gorizia
VII Lazo
VII Nueve de Julio
VII Yukon
VII Sims
VII Yūdachi
VII Leningrad
VII Błyskawica
VI Ark Royal
VI W. Virginia 1941
VI Arizona
VI Warspite
VI Dunkerque
VI Prinz Eitel Friedrich
VI Mutsu
VI London
VI De Grasse
VI Duca d'Aosta
VI Molotov
VI Admiral Makarov
VI Perth
VI Mysore
VI Huanghe
VI Ise
VI Monaghan
VI Gallant
VI Aigle
VI Leone
VI Juruá
VI Anshan
V Texas
V Agincourt
V Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya
V Viribus Unitis
V Marblehead
V Marblehead Lima
V Exeter
V Genova
V Yahagi
V Murmansk
V Krasny Krym
V Mikoyan
V Kirov
V Hill
V Siroco
V Okhotnik
Santa's Mega Gift
Santa's Big Gift
Santa's Gift
More details about the mechanics of containers, as well as the chances of obtaining their specific contents, are available here.
Even More Gifts!
Start:Fri. 10 Dec. 06:00 CET (UTC+1) End:Thu. 20 Jan. 06:00 CET (UTC+1)
One Santa's Gift container awaits you when you enter the Armory, and you'll obtain another one when you enter the in-game Premium Shop.
New Year Certificates
Snowflakes will help you collect gifts—blow them off playing Tier X ships to earn New Year Certificates. The Certificates can be exchanged in the Armory:
One Santa's Gift container can be obtained in exchange for 1 New Year Certificate.
One Santa's Big Gift container can be obtained in exchange for 3 New Year Certificates.
One Santa's Mega Gift container can be obtained in exchange for 5 New Year Certificates.
You'll be able to take advantage of festive battle performance bonuses until the end of Update 0.10.11. You can blow a Snowflake off each ship once in battles of any type, except for Training Battles.
With the release of Update 0.11.0, each remaining New Year certificate will be exchanged for one Santa's Gift container.
Christmas Preparations
Free daily random bundles await you in the Armory. Within them, you'll find four Santa's Gift containers. You'll also find Doubloons, 2 days of Warships Premium Account, festive camouflages, and Coal! The bundles will be available until:Thu. 20 Jan. 06:00 CET (UTC+1)
[table][tr][td]
Christmas Preparations
Recurring random bundle 0/18 Obtain[/td][/tr][/table]
Dockyard: Marlborough
Progress through the shipbuilding phases at the new Clydebank Dockyard to earn numerous rewards, including two Santa's Big Gift containers and one Santa's Gift container.
News From the Front
Four Santa's Gift containers, along with Community Tokens and other rewards, await you for completing special combat mission chains that can be unlocked on our website. Stay tuned for the news so you don't miss them!
Happy Holidays!
Follow the news — get the goods
If you like reading our news on Steam, it’s likely that you’ve already subscribed. But if you haven’t yet — there’s an even more pleasant reason to do so now!
Each month our subscribers will get some goodies, and they might be different each time! We’re going to send out a Steam container today(for those already subscribed) and at the end of the month too, which contains:
In the first slot:
5x Steam camouflage patterns:
+75% ship XP per battle
+75% Commander XP per battle
+75% Free XP per battle
–3% to the ship's detectability range by sea
+4% to the dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
or 10,000 Free XP
or 1 day of Warships Premium Account
or 250 doubloons
In the second slot: 5x signal flags (Zulu, Zulu Hotel, or Papa Papa)
In the third slot: 5x signal flags (Juliet Charlie or November Foxtrot)
The Clydebank Dockyard: Construction of Marlborough
In Update 0.10.11, you will be able to start building new British battleship Marlborough at the Clydebank Dockyard, as well as obtain two other ships—Dreadnought and Repulse!
IX Marlborough is based on a 1947 project with some of the design solutions borrowed from the Vanguard-class and King George V-class ships. Her primary feature is extensive but not particularly accurate artillery consisting of sixteen 356 mm guns housed in four turrets. While the battleship's armor is rather mediocre, this is compensated for by low detectability and numerous main battery guns that fire quite rapidly for her type and have a decent firing range.
While constructing IX Marlborough, you can also obtain the famous III Dreadnought and a new ship, VI Repulse—one of the Renown-class battleships that fought during the First and Second World Wars. The ship is armed with six 381 mm guns housed in three turrets. The guns have a good reach and decent accuracy, and they reload quickly for a battleship. Repulse enjoys high speed and a large HP pool, but she is relatively poorly armored.
The construction process at the Dockyard comprises 32 phases.
These shipbuilding phases can be progressed through by completing Dockyard combat mission groups or by spending 1,500 Doubloons to pass through each phase.
If you want to complete shipbuilding phases at a discount, you can purchase Starter Packs: eleven shipbuilding phases in exchange for 9,900 Doubloons and five shipbuilding phases in exchange for 5,500 Doubloons.
You can complete combat mission groups throughout the entire duration of Update 0.10.11 and during the first 3 weeks of Update 0.11.0. The Dockyard will remain available until the end of Update 0.11.1.
In total, you can progress through 27 out of 32 shipbuilding phases by completing the Dockyard combat mission groups.
[expand style="more"][/expand] You'll receive III Dreadnought in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage, a 6-skill-point Commander, and a Port slot as a reward for completing the 6th shipbuilding phase. Completing the 18th shipbuilding phase will reward you with VI Repulse in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage, a 6-skill-point Commander, and a Port slot. Completing other shipbuilding phases will bring you Santa's Gift, Santa's Big Gift, and Santa's Mega Gift containers; New Year Sky expendable camouflages; days of Warships Premium Account; Coal; Steel; Research Points; and other valuable rewards. Upon completing the 32nd shipbuilding phase, you'll receive IX Marlborough in the War Paint camouflage, a Commander with 10 skill points, a Port slot, and a commemorative flag.
If you already have III Dreadnought in your Port, you'll receive 5,250,000 Credits as compensation.
If you decide to complete the construction of IX Marlborough by spending Doubloons, you'll still be able to progress through the Dockyard combat mission groups. In that case, instead of the usual rewards for completing the shipbuilding phases, you'll get 250 Steel for each completed phase.
Combat Missions
The new game event tasks you with completing 72 combat missions spread across eight groups. The first group will become available with the release of Update 0.10.11, while those that follow will be unlocked on a weekly basis.
Completing each of the first five groups will progress you through three shipbuilding phases—two for accomplishing certain missions and one for finishing the group. Completing each of the remaining three combat mission groups will progress you through four shipbuilding phases—three for accomplishing certain missions and one for finishing the group.
The Dockyard combat mission groups will be available throughout the entire duration of Update 0.10.11 and during the first 3 weeks of Update 0.11.0.
Detailed information about the mission completion criteria can be found in the game client.
Rewards
By progressing through the combat mission groups, you can complete 27 out of 32 shipbuilding phases and obtain the corresponding rewards at the Dockyard.
By finishing the first two combat mission groups, you can complete up to six shipbuilding phases and obtain the following rewards:
III Dreadnought in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage with a 6-skill-point Commander and a Port slot
1x Santa's Gift container
5x New Year Sky expendable camouflages
2,000 Coal
20,000 Elite Commander XP
1 day of Warships Premium Account
Finishing six out of eight combat mission groups will allow you to complete up to 19 shipbuilding phases and obtain:
III Dreadnought in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage with a 6-skill-point Commander and a Port slot
VI Repulse in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage with a 6-skill-point Commander and a Port slot
1x Santa's Gift container and 1x Santa's Big Gift container
5 days of Warships Premium Account
10x New Year Sky expendable camouflages
5x expendable camouflages of each type: "Type 3 — New Year," Frosty Fir Tree, New Year, New Year Streamer, and Winter Strands
10x Basilisk special signals
2,000 Coal
20,000 Elite Commander XP
10,000 Free XP
1x Gift container
By completing the last two combat mission groups, you'll finish 27 shipbuilding phases and, in addition to the rewards specified above, receive one additional Santa's Big Gift container and ten of each of the following special signals: Ouroboros, Wyvern, Dragon, Scylla, Leviathan, Hydra, and Red Dragon.
Completing Construction of the Ship
In order to complete phases 28–32, in addition to progressing through all the combat mission groups, you'll need to spend Doubloons to finish any five shipbuilding phases. This will reward you with:
10,000 Coal for completing phase 28
1x Santa's Mega Gift container for completing phase 29
4,000 Research Points for completing phase 30
2,000 Steel for completing phase 31
IX Marlborough in the War Paint camouflage, a Commander with 10 skill points, a Port slot, and a commemorative flag for completing phase 32
If you want to complete shipbuilding phases at a discount, you can purchase Starter Packs:
Eleven shipbuilding phases for 9,900 Doubloons
Five shipbuilding phases for 5,500 Doubloons
However, these packs will only be available for purchase prior to the point in time when you complete three shipbuilding phases by finishing combat missions. Once you've purchased both Starter Packs or completed three shipbuilding phases by finishing combat missions, you'll be able to purchase further phases individually for 1,500 Doubloons each.
New Year Fleet
Two weeks after the release of Update 0.10.11, five themed groups of the New Year Fleet combat missions will become available. To complete them, you need to obtain VI Repulse, which is a reward for finishing the 18th shipbuilding phase at the Dockyard.
The reward for the first group is the New Year permanent camouflage for Tier VIII ships. Completing groups two, three, and four will earn you VI Weser, VI Fubuki, and VI Izmail, respectively. Each ship comes with the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage and a Commander with 6 skill points. The reward for completing the last combat mission group is VI Kijkduin in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage and Dutch Commander Sinterklaas with 10 skill points.
[expand style="more"][/expand]
All five combat mission groups will become available simultaneously. The first combat mission group can only be completed playing VI Repulse.
All details on the missions will be available in the game client.
Update 0.10.11: New Year
Please note that the servers will be temporarily unavailable due to the release of an update. The schedule is available below. Maintenance times are tentative and subject to change. Please accept our apologies for any inconveniences. [table][tr][td]
[/td][td] 08.12.2021 02:00 AM—05:00 AM PT (UTC–8)[/td][td] 2021-12-08 10:00—13:00 UTC[/td][/tr][/table] The new update will go live some time after it's been downloaded because the client and server sides are updated separately. While the client begins to update immediately, it takes time for the servers to be updated across all regions.
If there are problems with downloading or launching the update—please perform files integrity check. steam://validate/552990
Subtitles can be enabled in the video player separately. [previewyoutube="VmGj7bor3uY;full"] The following new features await you in Update 0.10.11:
The new Scottish Clydebank Dockyard, where you can build IX Marlborough.
The New Year's Night event, a festive collection, and other festive activities.
The new German battleships leaving Early Access.
Visual and technical improvements.
Let's dive into the details of these and other changes!
Read through this article carefully, and keep your eyes peeled for a gift! Share this article with your friends and Clanmates so they can arm themselves with all the essential info for this update!
New Year Celebrations
Gifts
Start:Fri. 10 Dec. 06:00 CET (UTC+1) End:Thu. 20 Jan. 06:00 CET (UTC+1)
A free Santa's Gift container will be available for you on the main page in the Armory. You can also claim another Santa's Gift container in the in-game Premium Shop.
The Armory and Premium Shop are also offering bundles with three types of Santa's Gift containers. In these festive containers, you'll find Doubloons, Coal, days of Warships Premium Account, camouflages, signals, or even one of 134 ships. You have specific chances to obtain rare ships, as well as Tier X ships.
Battle performance bonuses
Receive traditional New Year battle performance bonuses—"Snowflakes"—playing all of your Tier V ships and higher.
The bonus for combat results can be obtained by either scoring the first victory or earning 300 base XP playing a ship. Depending on the ship tier, you'll receive:
Tier V–VII ships: 750 Coal
Tier VIII–IX ships: 75 Steel
Tier X ships: 1 New Year Certificate
[expand style="more"][/expand] New Year Certificates are a special temporary resource that you can exchange for festive Santa's Gift, Santa's Big Gift, and Santa's Mega Gift containers during Update 0.10.11.
You can get one Santa's Gift container in exchange for 1 New Year Certificate.
You can get one Santa's Big Gift container in exchange for 3 New Year Certificates.
You can get one Santa's Mega Gift container in exchange for 5 New Year Certificates.
You'll be able to take advantage of festive battle performance bonuses until the end of Update 0.10.11. You can blow a Snowflake off each ship once in battles of any type, except for Training Battles.
With the release of Update 0.11.0, each remaining New Year certificate will be exchanged for one Santa's Gift container.
Exchange limit
If the exchange limit of 100 unopened containers is exceeded, the Santa's Gift containers you receive will not be opened automatically. This means that you can store more than 100 containers. However, due to the technical specifics of containers received after the exchange limit, the subsequent opening of a Santa's Gift container or any other container that you receive will lead to all Santa's Gift containers that exceed the unopened container limit being opened.
Let's say you have 100 unopened containers and 4 New Year Certificates at the end of the update cycle, for example. With the release of Update 0.11.0, your remaining 4 New Year certificates will be exchanged for four Santa's Gift containers, and these will not be opened automatically. Thus, you'll have 104 unopened containers. If you then open one Santa's Gift container or receive a More Resources container, any other Santa's Gift containers in your possession that exceed the limit will be opened automatically.
New Year's Night
One of the primary features of our New Year celebrations is a temporary event called New Year's Night. Magic stars brought three snow giants to life, and those snow giants now have the responsibility to prepare the festive celebrations. Each star entrusted its snow giant an errand in preparation for the celebrations. Help them contribute to the celebration!
The New Year's Night event is similar to the Aircraft Bureaus Rivalry and Battle of the Beasts events but with some small interface tweaks—we've updated the tooltips on the team selection screen and above the mission cards.
[expand style="more"][/expand]
Event rules
The event starts 2 weeks after the release of the update and runs until the end of Update 0.10.11. It is divided into four stages, with each stage running for 1 week.
Once each week, you can choose one of three teams named after the magic stars: Modus, Sertum, or Munera. During the event, you need to complete personal missions that are issued daily to all participants. The missions can be completed throughout the day in Random, Co-op, and Ranked Battles. Completing the missions will advance you through personal and team progress bars and unlock rewards.
Each team offers different unique rewards such as themed Commanders—the snow giants with 6 skill points—and V Omaha, V Jaguar, or V Conte di Cavour in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage. The first time you earn a unique reward from any team, you will also receive the New Year's Night achievement.
Other rewards include a new temporary resource—Star Tokens, Christmas and New Year in the Navy collection containers, and New Year Sky expendable camouflages.
You can receive up to 600 Star Tokens for taking part in the event. Apart from that, you can obtain up to 300 Star Tokens in exchange for Credits in the Armory, or alternatively, you can also purchase them with Doubloons.
[expand style="more"][/expand] Full details of the New Year's Night event will be revealed in a dedicated article.
The Christmas and New Year in the Navy Collection
The festive collection is dedicated to New Year and Christmas traditions in the navy. It consists of four pages, with six elements on each. The reward for completing each page is 1 day of Warships Premium Account. The reward for completing the entire collection is a Santa’s Big Gift container.
Collection elements drop only from Christmas and New Year in the Navy containers.
These containers can be obtained by participating in the New Year's Night event and in exchange for Star Tokens in the Armory. You can receive a total of:
Up to 28 containers in the New Year's Night event
Up to 40 containers for Star Tokens received in the New Year's Night event
Up to 20 containers for Star Tokens purchased with Credits
The exchange rate for duplicates is 4:1.
In a future update, the Christmas and New Year in the Navy containers will be added to the Armory and be available in exchange for Coal.
New Year Fleet
In Update 0.10.11, five themed groups of the New Year Navy combat missions will become available. To complete them, you need to obtain VI Repulse, which is one of the rewards at the Dockyard.
The reward for completing the first group is the New Year permanent camouflage for Tier VIII ships. Completing groups two, three, and four will earn you VI Weser, VI Fubuki, and VI Izmail, respectively, all in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage. The ships also come with Commanders with 6 skill points. The reward for completing the last combat mission group is VI Kijkduin in the Snow and Stars permanent camouflage and festive Dutch Commander Sinterklaas with 10 skill points.
[expand style="more"][/expand]
All five combat mission groups will become available at the same time, 2 weeks after the event starts. The first combat mission group can only be completed playing VI Repulse.
Details about the mission completion criteria will be available in the game client.
To mark the celebrations, we've updated the Port of London.
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Dockyard
Update 0.10.11 offers you the opportunity to start building a new ship. IX Marlborough is based on a 1947 project with some of the design solutions borrowed from the Vanguard-class and King George V-class ships. Her primary feature is extensive but not particularly accurate artillery consisting of sixteen 356 mm guns housed in four turrets. While the battleship's armor is rather mediocre, this is compensated for by low detectability and numerous main battery guns that fire quite rapidly for her type and have a decent firing range.
[expand style="more"][/expand] While constructing IX Marlborough, you can also obtain the famous III Dreadnought and a new ship, VI Repulse—one of the Renown-class battleships that fought during the First and Second World Wars. The ship is armed with six 381 mm guns housed in three turrets. The guns have a good reach and decent accuracy, and they reload quickly for a battleship. Repulse enjoys high speed and a large HP pool, but she is relatively poorly armored.
We'll provide you more details on building of IX Marlborough in a separate dedicated article.
Submarine Tweaks
The torpedo homing mechanics have been updated:
At the maximum launch distance, they will home in strictly on the impact point of a sonar ping without considering the target lead.
As the distance to the target decreases, torpedoes will home in with a gradually increasing lead—up to 50%. After reaching half the launch distance, torpedoes will home in strictly on the lead point.
At the same time, just like before, torpedoes stop homing when they are within a certain distance of their target.
This change will allow torpedoes to home in on their targets in a more natural way and reduce the frequency of situations where homing torpedoes launched in the proximity of islands at ships highlighted with a sonar ping would hit the land. Moreover, it will be somewhat easier for the target itself to dodge homing torpedoes because removing the sonar ping effect no longer affects the accuracy of torpedoes.
The Hydrophone now becomes available some time after each battle begins. Unlike main battery guns or torpedo launchers, the time that the Hydrophone takes to prepare for battle is longer than its reload time.
This change will reduce the impact of submarines on the gameplay on enemy submarines at the beginning of each battle and allow them to occupy a more advantageous tactical position without being detected by the Hydrophone at the very start of the battle.
Other Changes
Added an underwater torpedo reticle.
You can enter Training Battles playing submarines on maps that feature the underwater world.
Added the indication of additional dive capacity depletion for a detected enemy submarine.
Added information about the additional dive capacity depletion of detected submarines to the post-battle statistics screen.
Added new tips for submarines when they launch sonar pings at a target:
"The ping will be dispersed"—if the target has the Damage Control Party or Fast Damage Control Team consumable active.
"Insufficient time for torpedoes to acquire the target"—if the target is too close for torpedoes to home in.
The ship status screen that is brought up by pressing H now displays the ship's detectability from a submarine that is at the operational or periscope depths, as well as when the ship is inside a smoke screen.
Added the ability to switch to torpedo launchers from Sonar by pressing 3 for all submarines.
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Armory
Coupons
Four single-use coupons for the "Ships for Doubloons" category, which grant 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25% discounts, have been added to the Armory. Coupons will become available:Thu. 23 Dec. 06:00 CET (UTC+1) Coupons valid through:Sat. 08 Jan. 06:00 CET (UTC+1)
Free random bundles
Be on the lookout for Christmas Preparations free random bundles in the Armory. Among them, you can expect to find 4x Santa's Gift containers, Doubloons, days of Warships Premium Account, festive camouflages, and Coal.
A total of 18 bundles will be available until the end of Update 0.10.11, so you can skip more than 3 weeks and still be able to collect all the rewards.
You can obtain only one bundle each day.
Other content
We have added a Dutch Commander—Klaas Janssen—available in exchange for 35,000 Coal. The Commander has two improved skills:
For destroyers, cruisers, and battleships—Demolition Expert: +1.5% to the chances of setting a target on fire when hitting it with HE shells (by default: +1%).
For cruisers and battleships—Focus Fire Training: +35% to AA damage in the priority sector (by default: +25%).
Added a German Destroyers container, available in exchange for 2,000 Coal. We have also changed the contents of the container.
Each German Destroyers container now includes:
An element of the same-name collection
1x "Black, White, Red" camouflage
3x signals of the same type (Zulu, Equal Speed Charlie London, Papa Papa, or Zulu Hotel) or 1,500 Elite Commander XP
When the update goes live, the contents of all German Destroyers containers that are currently in players' possession will be updated as well.
Content Additions and Changes
The update brings the following items to the game:
Japanese Castle permanent camouflage for VI Fusō.
"A Good Cause" commemorative flag and patch.
New Year Constellation commemorative flag.
Early Morning and For Valiant Service expendable camouflages. Visually, these are identical to the Rising and For Meritorious Service camouflages, but provide a different set of bonuses.
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Bonuses provided by the camouflages
−3% to the ship's detectability range by sea
+4% to the dispersion of shells fired by enemies at your ship
+100% XP per battle
+75% Commander XP per battle
+50% Free XP per battle
+50% Credits per battle
Details on how to obtain these in-game items will be announced later.
We have added new ships that can drop from Supercontainers and Steam Supercontainers.
The armor layout of VIII Pobeda has been updated to accommodate the new technology we touched upon in detail in our article about Update 0.10.9.
With future updates, we'll continue reworking ships to gradually accommodate the new armor protection system.
Other Changes
Sound presets
Players now have access to a selection of sound presets in the Game Settings. By switching between those presets, you can quickly adjust the audio image of the game to your preferences at any moment.
Available sound presets:
Standard: Default sound settings.
Cinematic: Sound effects are brought to the foreground; the sound is more vivid and saturated.
Simple: The volume of sound effects is reduced; additional sounds and highly distracting audio effects are disabled. This setting will help focus your attention on in-game notifications.
Night: The settings are optimized for playing at low and medium volumes and the dynamic range is reduced. At the same time, all effects and notifications are preserved.
Custom: Gives you the ability to set up the game sound yourself using the fine-tuning sliders.
Each sound preset is based on the following:
Varying loudness of different groups of sounds.
Varying audio frequency corrections.
Enabling or disabling certain sounds.
Varying dynamic characteristics.
None of the presets, except Custom, offer any fine-tuning capabilities, and you can only adjust the general volume settings. This, however, will let you immerse yourself in the various audio options we've added to the game.
Sound presets can be selected in the Game Settings. The Standard preset is active by default. Any preconfigured sound settings will not be reset with the release of the update. Instead, the Custom option will be enabled.
Ranked Battles Season extension
To avoid a long break between the current and following seasons of Ranked Battles, the Fifth Season will be extended for an extra 2-week long Sprint. Updated Season completion time:Thu. 17 Feb. 01:00 CET (UTC+1)
Changes to Co-op Battles and bot behavior
We've updated the templates for the matchmaker and the behavior of AI-controlled bots in Co-op Battles.
The matchmaker start template used for battles of Tier VI and above includes a maximum of three battleships and three destroyers per team. If the waiting time of the first player in the queue for battle exceeds 25 seconds, the maximum allowed number of battleships and destroyers per team changes to four.
We have excluded the possibility of matching battles with five battleships or five destroyers per team for all battle tiers.
Bots will now fire at targets more accurately.
These changes will provide for better balance in team lineups in Co-op Battles while also making the behavior of bots more realistic.
Changes to the ship purchasing process
We've changed the screen transition sequence after purchasing a ship: Now, when purchasing a new ship from the Tech Tree, you will be taken to the ship demonstration screen. From there, you can navigate to the Equipment tab, to the Port, or back to the Tech Tree.
Ships can now be purchased from the ship viewing window. Added the "To Tech Tree" button to the ship viewing window.
Thank you for being an attentive reader! Click "Collect Your Gift" to claim
[/th][/tr][/table] You can claim your reward before:Mon. 17 Jan. 14:00 CET (UTC+1)
Other changes and improvements
Added the underwater world to the following maps: Ring, Defense of Naval Station Newport, Operation Killer Whale, and Raptor Rescue.
Added text hints about the condition of the Depth Charges and Airstrike armament in battle.
The 150 mm/45 SK L/45 secondary battery guns mounted on VIII Zieten were replaced with 150 mm/55 SK C/28 guns to maintain unified shells ballistics of 150 mm secondary battery guns.
VIII Ship Smasha now has two charges of the Depth Charge armament, same as VIII Fenyang.
The spawn points for submarines have been slightly changed for all maps.
We've reworked the flag with the Warhammer 40,000 logo that's mounted on board VIII Ship Smasha, VIII Cross of Dorn, VIII Ignis Purgatio, and VIII Ragnarok.
Fixed a sync issue that caused the position of sub torpedoes to be displayed incorrectly.
Fixed an issue that extended the firing range of certain ships beyond their spotting range.
Other improvements and changes. For a complete list, please refer to Player Support.
Community Giveaway!
Commanders!
We’re holding a special and easy-to-enter giveaway—5 lucky winners will be picked at random.
Premium Subscription in Return for Applying Tags to the Game!
Captains!
Which component of the game is most important to you? Global multiplayer gaming? The militaristic naval setting? Is it realistic ships? Tell us about your preferences, and we'll grant you one day of Warships Premium Account!
Find the "Popular user-defined tags for this product" section on the right-hand side of the main page of the game.
Click the "+" symbol.
Select a tag (or create your own) that’s applicable to World of Warships. To select an existing tag from the list, click the "+" symbol next to the tag of your choice.
Share your list of tags in the comments of this news item.
Within a matter of days, you'll be granted 1 day of Warships Premium Account (for your account associated to the Steam account)!
Attention! During this event, 1 day of Warships Premium Account will be granted only once, regardless of the number of tags issued.
Good luck in battle, Captains!
Black Friday Community Event
Captains!
Black Friday is here, and we're holding a giveaway to celebrate! Take your chance to win Tier IX battleship Pommern B!
How to Enter:
Leave a comment under this announcement post.
Complete the first part of the Black Friday combat mission (Get 15 "Hits to citadel" ribbons; Battle modes—PvP, Co-op, Ranked; Ships—Tiers V–X).
Prizes:
Guaranteed prize: 1x Black Friday 2021 container and 200 Community Tokens.
Superprize for three random winners: Loyang B
First prize for one random winner: Pommern B
Rules:
The winners will be picked at random from the pool of participating unique users (who leave a comment and complete the combat mission).
Any comments that break the discussion rules may be deleted or excluded.
We will announce the results in this thread on November 29. The prizes will be awarded within a week.
If you like reading our news on Steam, it’s likely that you’ve already subscribed. But if you haven’t yet — there’s an even more pleasant reason to do so now!
Each month our subscribers will get some goodies, and they might be different each time! We’re going to send out a Steam container today(for those already subscribed) and at the end of the month too, which contains:
In the first slot:
5x Steam camouflage patterns:
+75% ship XP per battle
+75% Commander XP per battle
+75% Free XP per battle
–3% to the ship's detectability range by sea
+4% to the dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
or 10,000 Free XP
or 1 day of Warships Premium Account
or 250 doubloons
In the second slot: 5x signal flags (Zulu, Zulu Hotel, or Papa Papa)
In the third slot: 5x signal flags (Juliet Charlie or November Foxtrot)
Update 0.10.11 brings a new Dockyard, New Year activities, and other fresh new features. Take a look at the Developer Bulletin, and welcome to the Test! See you on the Public Test Server!
Starts:Thu. 25 Nov. 17:30 CET (UTC+1) Ends:Tue. 30 Nov. 06:30 CET (UTC+1)
Сommanders, thank you for participating in the Public Test for Update 0.10.11! Your feedback helps us to improve the version and to fix errors. Check out the changelog and join the second session of the Public Test!
Changelog
Balance changes to X Zaō, VIII Tallinn, VI Fubuki, X Yueyang, and some other ships were made. Details are available in our Development Blog.
Updated the videos and fixed several issues in the Dockyard.
Reduced the volume of the background sound effects during battle for the "Low" and "Ultra" sound quality settings.
Fixed several technical and interface issues with submarines.
Fixed visual issues in the London port.
Fixed an issue which caused the ships on the "Loop" and "Sleeping Giant" maps to get stuck near some islands.
Fixed an issue which caused bots in Co-op battles to frequently collide with islands.
Fixed an issue because of which the "Interval between individual shots" parameter was not displayed in the description of the alternative firing mode of Annapolis.
Fixed an issue because of which the information about torpedo hits on the ship and damage received from torpedoes was not displayed in the post-battle screen.
Fixed several other issues.
Combat Missions and Rewards
The rewards for activities on the Public Test Server may differ from those on the Live Server.
The rewards will automatically be credited to your account within a few days of the release of the new version.
All players will have access to Tier VI, VIII, and X submarines.
You can receive III Dreadnought, VI Repulse, and IX Marlborough for completing shipbuilding phases. However, you will not be able to helm Repulse and Marlborough into battle. The ships will only be available to view in the Port.
You can earn Community Tokens by completing combat missions on the Public Test Server.
[table][tr][th]Round[/th][th][/th][th][/th][/tr] [tr][th]1[/th][th]2[/th][th][/th][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Earn 250 Base XP in a single battle in Random or Co-op Battles.
Reward on the Live Server: 100 Community Tokens [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Earn 1,000 Base XP in Random or Co-op Battles.
Reward on the Live Server: 200 Community Tokens [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Earn 8,000 Base XP in Random Battles playing submarines.
Reward on the Live Server: 1x Wargaming container [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Complete 32 shipbuilding phases at the Dockyard. At least five of them must be progressed through by completing Dockyard combat missions.
Reward on the Live Server: 1,000 Community Tokens [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Obtain any unique Commander of the New Year's Eve event.
Reward on the Live Server: 500 Community Tokens [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Earn 70 "Caused flooding" and "Torpedo hits" ribbons in Random Battles.
Reward on the Live Server: 450 Community Tokens [/td][/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td] Win five Co-op Battles playing Tier X ships and deal at least 30,000 damage in each victorious battle.
Reward on the Live Server: 250 Community Tokens [/td][/tr][/table]
Each Wargaming container drops 1 day of Warships Premium Account, 3x Papa Papa signals, and 3x Juliet Charlie signals.
If you obtain a unique Commander of one of the teams in the New Year's Eve event during Round 1 of the Public Test, you will need to obtain a Commander of another team to complete the mission during Round 2.
Starting Bonuses
The research prices for ships and ship modules will be substantially discounted.
Players will be able to reset Commander skills free of charge.
If you're joining the Public Test for the first time since Update 0.10.9, you'll be awarded the following additional bonuses:
At the start of the Public Test, every participant will have all researchable Tier VI and VIII ships, helmed by Commanders with 19 skill points, credited to their PT accounts.
500,000,000 Credits; 30,000 Doubloons; 250,000 Coal, and 90 days of Warships Premium Account.
50 signals of all types (except for special signals) will also be added to your PT account.
If you fought at least one battle on the Public Test Server during the 0.10.10 Public Test, your account will be copied from the Live Server to the Public Test Server.
X Shikishima's guns had an error in the audibility range setting (it could be heard at a greater range than was intended), and this error was fixed. However, you noticed that the sound lost its unique quality due to the fix, so we returned this "error" to the game.
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