May 23, 2022

Version 745: Weapon Balance, Weapon Feel and QoL changes

Due Process - GEC_OZY

A patch containing a lot of changes to gun gameplay balance, gun feel, along with tons of other QoL features and changes like Offscreen indicators for grenades and Customization Presets. Check out the video below for an overview of the changes. The patch notes also contain a lot of designer notes (in italics) to help players understand our reasoning behind the changes we're making.

New Weapon Mechanics:

Due Process is a game about planning and execution and part of that equation is optimal player positioning and movement based on weapon choice. The simplicity of weapon mechanics in Due Process currently leads to a gameplay strategy the promotes constant motion of any shooter. These changes are designed to create better tactical gameplay by giving clear advantages when holding an angle compared to assaulting a position.

Weapon Inertia:

All Weapons now feature inertia. Inertia causes weapons to lag behind the aim point when turning, lagging behind further the sharper you turn. The amount and characteristic of the inertia is determined by the weight of the weapon and if it is stocked. Heavy weapons have higher amounts of inertia and slower inertial recovery. Stockless weapons have more positional inertia, causing their barrel to lose alignment with the players perspective.

The primary intent of this change is to make flicking for all weapons less effective, increasing the advantage to facing towards an opponent. Heavier weapons have the greatest penalty to sharp flicks and will have significant catch up time.

Flashbang Penalty to Inertia:

There is a new concussion penalty that slows the recovery of weapon inertia, Stockless weapons receive a severe penalty to recovery while concussed.

Another lever for us to tune certain weapons in the Defender arsenal and create more characteristics per weapon. Heavier stockless weapons such as TUB-12 and KR82u will receive the greatest penalty when under a concussive effect.

Aim Settle:

Weapons will have a brief moment before the ADS/Brace settles into alignment. The time it takes to enter ADS and Brace has been reduced across the board for all weapons. Lighter weapons settle faster than heavier weapons. Stocked weapons settle faster than stockless weapons.

Aim Settle increases the snappiness of Aiming or Bracing a weapon while infering a more significant penalty while bringing the weapon to bare. This mechanic allows heavy weapons such as the Ingmar to have a substantial penalty without making its ADS speed feel like molasses.

Weapon Movement Sway:

While moving weapons now bob up and down and slightly side to side. Long Rifles feature less weapon bob but have slower ADS movement. Weapon bob is significantly reduced by walking and crouching.

Weapon bob is the primary mechanic to give an advantage to a player holding the angle vs an assaulting player. Reducing the effectiveness of Moving and Shooting at range, creating more space for long range weapons to be optimal and decreasing the lethality of mobile targets.

Shotgun Rework:

In a game about CQB shotguns are very tricky to tune. We wanted to increase consistency and depth of gameplay beyond "get closer". Shotguns now have greater ADS accuracy and higher Head/Chest damage multipliers increasing it's effective lethal range with well placed shots. To balance this new lethality, the TUB-12 has the largest and slowest Weapon Inertia recovery, giving it distinct weapon characteristics compared to the stocked DL-12.
All shotguns now use the same spread pattern (TUB-12)

12 Gauge: (ammo used by all shotguns)

Head Multiplier increased from 1.7 to 2.0
Chest Multiplier increased from 1.35 to 1.5
Abdomen Multiplier decreased from 1.35 to 1.25
The highest damaging 7 pellets are chosen instead of all 9 while calculating damage, to create more consistent damage based on range.

TUB-12:

ADS accuracy increased by 35%
Brace no longer has a laser
Brace no longer has an accuracy bonus

Super Shorty:

ADS accuracy increased by 35%
Brace no longer has a laser
Brace no longer has an accuracy bonus

Auto Shotgun:

Fire rate reduced from 300 to 240
The Auto Shotgun increased in lethal range and consistency, the reduction in fire rate was to offset its buffs slightly.

Sniper Nerfs:

When reducing player top speed Sniper Rifles received a buff while still overperforming in their intended roles. As such they have received significant nerfs.
Keep in mind: Snipers do not have Aim Settle, Weapon Inertia, or Movement Sway while scoped; instead, their movement speed while ADS has been greatly reduced to impede their ability in pushing angles, but they are more powerful in holding an angle with the reduction in top speed.

MAWP:

Damage reduced from 135 to 85.

At 135 damage the MAWP left enforcers feeling completely powerless when hit and created an incentive to settle for body shots. With the reduction in top speed landing body shots is even easier and we wanted to re-enforce the MAWP as a precision weapon.

SAB-R:

Significant Horizontal recoil after the first shot.
Magazine size reduced from 7 to 5.

The SAB-R is intended to be unchallengeable while holding a long angle, but its lethality allows it to be deadly effective in too many scenarios; these changes are intended to increase the cost of missing shots and decrease the effectiveness of chaining multiple Body shots together.

Thigh Damage Multiplier:

Thigh damage multi increased to 1, up from .75 for all applicable weapons.
Increase the consistency of weapon damage

Other Weapon Change:

Breathing effect from guns removed (when aimed at a static location, breathing used to kick in and cause the aim to start moving)

Movement Changes:

General Movement Changes

Enforcers movement speed decreased from 6.2 to 5.5
Enforcer sprint speed decreased from 9.6 to 8.5
Defender movement speed decreased from 7 to 6.5
Defender sprint speed decreased from 11 to 10

Top speed has been reduced. Acceleration has been increased. Players should feel snappier when accelerating. Acceleration/Deceleration is linear and no longer halts player movement when changing directions. Movement should feel more responsive and have an increased penalty when changing directions.

Jump Penalty Changes:

A player's first jump will no longer engage the movement speed landing penalty.
There is large random horizontal offset when jumping while ADS.

Crouch Speed:

Entering crouch time increase from .35 to .4
Exiting crouch time increased from .35 to 1

We want players to have an evasive response to incoming fire but decrease the effectiveness of spamming and decrease the speed at which players pop out of cover.

Other Changes:

Retreat Ladder:

60 seconds into the execution phase, The Enforcer Truck doors will close, locking players inside. They are considered "retreated" and out of play (like being dead). The round will end when all enforcers are dead or "retreated."

This addition will give Enforcers a mechanic to save gear without waiting out the round, decreasing downtime. It also introduces better parity for late-joining defenders and attackers.

Grenades:

Grenade Bounciness:

Grenades now maintain more velocity when bouncing off a shallow angle.
Grenades lose more energy when bouncing off the floor.

The enforcers will have more nuance in grenade placement. Allowing for increased precision, either at close or long range, when bouncing off the floor or getting deeper grenades by bouncing off shallow angles.

Grenade Indicators:

Grenades now show a long range yellow indicator when thrown by a friendly and a short range white indicator when thrown by an enemy.

Grenade indicators are ultimately a QoL feature to help facility team execution and alleviate uncertainty in chaotic situations.

Auto-Equip Changes:

"Gruber Gang" has been replaced.
Defenders will no longer spawn Grubers when entering the execution phase without any weapons. Instead, weapons will be chosen from the weapon wall automatically for them.
Power weapons will never be automatically taken.

Preset Customizations:

A highly requested community feature, you now have three slots to save preset customizations.
On the bottom right corner of the customization screen, you will find the preset buttons. Press the plus to save the current customization as a preset. Click a saved slot to discard your current customizations and load that preset. When hovering over a saved slot, you can click the red X to delete that preset and enable you to save over that slot.

Misc:

Matchmaking changes to reduce unintended team-stacking when adding new players to an existing minimatch via matchmaking
A new state on the UI is introduced for attackers who have retreated or who were caught AFK in the truck, joined late, etc. NOTE: The defenders also have this state on the UI, but it currently only kicks in once the truck doors have closed.
Bank tileset has 20 more seconds in Execution.
Killfeed will display placeholder names if a player lacks renderable characters in their name
Animation Blends related to movement have been Improved
Some new maps rotated into the pool
Fixes to eight maps from previous rotations thanks to community feedback on map issues
Misc backend updates for maintenance

May 23, 2022

AI Kingdoms Update - Now Available

Kingdoms and Castles - petey123567

Hi Everyone,

We are very excited to announce the AI Kingdoms update is finally here! We've been working on this update for over a year and a half and it represents an huge amount of content. Here's a quick little trailer we whipped up:

We've not only added AI Kingdoms you can chat with, trade with, and fight but we've also improved the game in many other respects. There's so much we've added - this is going to be a long post - let's get to it!

AI Kingdoms

We've added AI Kingdoms that exist on the same map and essentially play by the same rules. You can establish relationships with them, engage in trade, and of course war.

Up to 3 AIs can play on your map at once. AIs are allowed to spawn on island maps with large enough islands.

You'll use diplomats from the hall of diplomacy to interact with the AI. Train a diplomat and use a transport ships to visit AI Kingdoms.

Once there you'll be able to discuss important things, make alliances, declare war, plea for peace, request help, and more. The AIs will also send diplomats of their own to talk with you. Depending on how you respond and interact with the AI their opinion of you will change.

The AIs use an advanced system to build their towns and defenses. They plan areas for residential and agricultural zones. They follow all the normal build rules the player does, construct wooden, then stone walls, and can even use aqueducts and reservoirs.

Visibility System

Alongside the AI Kingdoms we've implemented a visibility system. All units (diplomats, footmen, ships, etc) provide a sight radius. When you become allies with an AI you are granted full visibility into their kingdom.

Sea Gates

Now you can have protected harbors. Build a sea gate to block enemy ships from entering.

Siege Workshop and Catapult

In case things get a bit unfriendly between you and the AIs, you both will need a way to address those pesky walls. We've added a siege workshop which can create catapults. Load them on your transport ships to siege AI Kingdoms, but watch your gold - their wages are expensive.

Transport Carts

You can now build transport carts to transport resources between docks, granaries, butchers, fishmongers, and stockpiles. Now it's possible to solve those pesky transportation issues when you have large farming districts separated from residential zones.

New Happiness Buildings

We've also added a jousting arena and theater to entertain your peasants. We've also added a system where idle peasants will actually go and sit in the stands, visit gardens, taverns, and other kingdom attractions.

New Mechanic - Building Integrity

Over time buildings will start to degrade, you can check you building integrity in the bottom left UI. Clicking on it shows an overlay indicating which structures need repair. Build masons and they'll automatically get to work keeping your buildings safe and structurally sound.

Minimap

We've added a fully featured minimap that tracks unit positions, vikings, dragons, fires, and plagues. It can be moved and re-sized as you see fit. It also has the option to rotate to match your view, or to stay fixed and only rotate the camera view display.

Pretty Roads

Very special thanks to Jorge, creator of the the Pretty Roads mod. With his help we've integrated it into the game. Now double wide roads are possible and look great!

Exploration Ship and Settlers

This is now how to settle new islands. Once an island is settled and you want to get more people over there quicker, you can make settlers at your keep then load them into a transport ship. Unload them on the new island and click settle.

Survival Mode and new Statue

We've added a new much harder difficulty mode. In this mode, viking and dragon attacks are increased and resources are limited. If you can survive 250 years you'll unlock a new statue to use in any game mode thereafter.

Kingdom Colors

You can now change your kingdom color and banner both before you begin during banner select and at any time during gameplay by clicking on the keep and selecting the banner button.

Save Sharing

You can now share your save games with your friends. Upload your save to the cloud using the Kingdom share feature, then send the code to your friend. They can get a copy of your save from the cloud and play with it as they wish. Either click the share button in game up in the top right or click the share button from the main menu to try it out.

Optimizations

We've worked very hard to optimize the game given all the new stuff that's been added. In general, any map you had from before the update should run faster than before. Of course there's always more work to be done here and we'll be optimizing further in future updates.

Other Improvements

Added beefier viking infantry unit
Added ability for units to auto target enemies (change it by selecting a unit)
Added better range indicator for ballista and archer tower
Added ability for ogres to attack units
Greatly improved localization
Reworked ship movement so they don't block each other as much
Improved building selection effect
Increased world size a bit (about 15-20% more buildable tiles)
Job categories can now be limited per category in the Job Priority Menu
Added way to rate limit shipping routes
Towers can be built higher without first removing the defenses on top
Wood walls can be replaced with stone walls without demolishing them first
Reduced costs of witch spells
Double clicking a unit will select all units of that type in the camera view filtered by team
Added a little visual effect on tile actions (chop, chop remove, demolish, rebuild)
Added happiness buffs for defeating enemy troops, and debuffs for combat deaths
Improved blacksmith resource gathering
Added way to remove witch with army (for a cost)
Great halls can be used to throw a public feast
Added grid that appears in build mode
Added options for choosing whether maps generate with rivers
Much better support for ultrawide resolutions
Revamp UI visuals to be more clear and easier to read

Fixes

Fixed issue where workers could loop resources between granary, dock, and produce storage
Fixed game speed getting reset on entering certain UIs
Fixed crash on start if you had Citrix Workspace installed
Fixed hazard pay not being reflected in gold info
Fixed rare issue where using the creative mode delete brush could cause a hang
Fixed some resource counting issues in the UI
Tons of other small fixes

Whew! Thank you so much for your patience and we hope you really enjoy this update! We'll be working next to fix any bugs or issue you run into, VR support, Steam Deck support, and to further improve the game.

Until next time,
-Pete, Michael, Sam

May 23, 2022

Clan Battles: The Cayman Season

World of Warships - WoWarships Admiral

Captains!

Clan Battles Season 17 kicks off during Update 0.11.4. It's named "Cayman." The cayman is a dangerous reptile that inhabits the swamps, rivers, and lakes of America. They are nocturnal predators that are often at the top of the food chain in their ecosystems. The trunk of the world tree was depicted as an upright cayman in Mesoamerican mythology.

Clan Battles offer an excellent opportunity to show off your skills in World of Warships. It's not only the results of individual battles that are important here but also general progress. Fight alongside your allies and rise to the top!

Just like in previous seasons, any player who fights in a Clan, Co-op, Ranked, or Random Battle playing a Tier VIII–X ship or supership will be given a set of three special Tier X ships for temporary use: X Gearing, X Yamato, and X Zaō.

Win Clan Battles to earn valuable rewards such as Steel, Coal, camouflages, special signals, Clan Tokens, and much more. The more victories you achieve, the more rewards you'll earn.

Rules
Rewards
Clan Treasury

Rules

Starts: Wed. 25 May 13:30 CEST (UTC+2)
Ends: Mon. 11 Jul. 05:30 CEST (UTC+2)

Format: 7 vs. 7 playing Tier X ships and superships.

Rewards: Up to 11,000 Steel and loads of other rewards.

Maps and modes: Sea of Fortune, Tears of the Desert, Mountain Range, Neighbors, Warrior's Path, Loop. Battles on all maps are fought in Domination mode.

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The following rules apply for all maps:

Number of Key Areas: 3
Capture time: 30 seconds
Scoring capture points: 3 points every 4 seconds

On the days of any update releases, Clan Battles are held only during the Prime Time of your server.

Restrictions on Ship Numbers

Just like in previous seasons, certain restrictions on the numbers of specific ships per team apply in Clan Battles.

The restrictions can be set for the entire duration of a season or for specific periods of time. For example, they might be set after the first 2 weeks of a season then replaced with different restrictions a few weeks later. This allows us to promptly react to the current state of the season.

Season 17 begins with the following restrictions:

Aircraft carriers are not allowed in battles.
You cannot enter battle playing X Petropavlovsk or X Kléber.
No more than one battleship per team.
No more than two superships per team.
No more than three mercenaries per Division.

These restrictions allow us to diversify the gameplay and increase the variability of setups in the season.

Aircraft carriers are not allowed in the current season. In future seasons, however, carriers will take their rightful place in Clan Battles again.

During the season, based on statistics, new restrictions may be added and existing restrictions may be changed. We will announce the changes separately on our Development Blog. Information about any changes will also be available in the game client.

Rewards

Detailed information about the completion criteria and rewards can be found in the game client.

As an experiment for a single chain of combat missions, we've decided to let players in the Storm League choose their own reward—either

30 days of Warships Premium Account or

15,000 Coal.

You can choose your reward under the Combat Missions tab. If no reward is selected, the first suggested reward—

30 days of Warships Premium Account—will automatically be credited after the mission chain is completed.

Clan Treasury

Clans with Ranks 1–50 in the Global Rating will receive from 5,000 to 25,000 Steel.

Place in the Global Rating

Steel

25,000

22,500

20,000

17,500

5–50*

16,250–5,000

*Each following step brings 250 Steel less.

Clans that don't enter the top 50 will receive Steel and Coal for their Treasury at the end of the season. The exact amount depends on their league and group.

League, Group

Steel

Coal

Hurricane, 1

2,500

25,000

Typhoon, 1

1,500

25,000

Typhoon, 2

1,000

20,000

Typhoon, 3

15,000

Storm, 1

12,500

Storm, 2

10,000

Storm, 3

7,500

Gale, 1

5,000