World of Warships – Double XP Weekend and Update 0.4.1

By Atlas on August 14, 2015 in Daily News, Naval Combat, Naval Combat Previews

Ever since Wargaming announced World of Battleships Warships way, way back in the before time (2011), fans of the World of (Tanks – Warplanes) series have been eagerly awaiting this next installment in the franchise to drop. Luckily, back in March, World of Warships entered closed beta which then turned into an open beta this last July. While the game’s launch date is still somewhat nebulous, it’s pretty clear that it will be here soon.

Double XP Weekend

This weekend (August 14-17) World of Warships your first win in each warship will grant you double experience rewards – meaning those modules and ships you’ve been eying will be even closer to your grasp. Similarly, for those of you dabbling in the Premium Shop, there will be a Weekend Captain’s Pass ($9.99 USD) which gives you three days of Premium time that increases your XP and credit gains even more. The pass also hands you 1,500 Doubloons to do with as you please.

Starts: Friday, August 14, 04:20 PT / 07:20 ET

Ends: Monday, August 17, 04:20 PT / 07:20 ET

Update 0.4.1 – Ranked Battles

The newest update will introduce a Ranked Battles system for you to sink your competitive teeth into. While somewhat similar to Standard Battle, Rank Battles only have seven players, aircraft carriers are limited to one, and battleships are limited to two. As the name implies, Ranked Battles allow you to climb in ranks by gaining Stars for your victories. Stars are given in addition to the standard XP and Credit gains you’d expect. In an effort to keep the competition balanced, there are three tiers which separate beginners from intermediate and advanced players. The first tier, which is meant for beginners, allows users to play and learn without the fear of losing any earned Stars. However, tiers two and three bring on stiffer competition and make it possible for players to lose Stars and drop down a rank. While you won’t be thrown into battle with players from other tiers, you will be tossed into the mix with players of various ranking within your tier. And, of course, you are rewarded with in-game resources for achieving certain ranks, with the devs promising more unique rewards for Ranked Battles sometime in the future.

Balancing Issues

Naturally, since Ranked Battles are now a thing, players are going to be even more concerned with balancing issues than ever before. While there’s not a lot of new info over the current round of changes coming with 0.4.1, the devs have stated their attention to the issue and announced a few of the most important changes incoming:

The precision of any battleship’s primary guns have been considerably increased at a range of up to three kilometers.
The Premium pre-order vessels Sims and Yubari have been improved. The former gets a new set of torpedoes (slower, but with a longer engagement range) and the latter receives a “Defensive Armament” consumable boosting its anti-aircraft capabilities.
Many Japanese and American ships have been rebalanced – detailed information coming soon!

The developers have also improved game client performance (it requires less disk space now), sound, music, the user interface, and some game mechanics – players using a map’s edge to their advantage while turning will now be targeted properly.

Another change comes in the way that fighters are handled. Instead of simply launching your fighters and moving onto other tactics, you can now target them to a specific area, much like you can with bombers and torpedo bombers now, and have them expend their ammo in a blaze of glory. While the change comes at the cost of burning through ammo, it does give players more control over exact, skillful strikes.

Full patch notes are promised to us… Soon™.

New Maps

0.4.1 will also be introducing two new, warm water climate maps in which to annihilate your competition. The new maps also sport some welcomed aesthetic changes: trees and foliage will now grow on islands. In fact, all maps with suitable climates will sport forests and jungles – provided your graphic settings are at least set to medium.

The Straight

Is inspired by the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatres: here you’ll enter battle near the Italian coast where the British Fleet defended Malta and carrier planes led the first ever swarm attack against heavy ships.

Solomon Islands

The second map, Solomon Islands, is a representation of part of the archipelago of the same name. These islands hosted one of the most famous battles of World War II—the Battle of Guadalcanal.

If you’re interested in update 0.4.1, it’s currently on the public test servers for those wanting to testing it out today and tomorrow. As always, these changes are subject to alteration before (and after) the update hits the live servers.