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Legends! It's time to talk about Commanders, and without further ado let us just show you a screenshot:   Please keep in mind that this is still very much work in progress and most of the details, including skill configurations, stats and even some art. You'll notice that there are already more skills available in the game 🙂 And boy is there a lot to explain here! But let's start at the beginning. When implementing commanders we wanted to make sure that they are fun, varied and are something that you, Legends, can identify with. They represent an avatar of sorts, that will enhance gameplay on the ship of your choice in various ways. And that can be attained by trying out different commanders with particular tendencies or using the different builds of the same commander, thereby boosting diverse facets of your warship. Please note that commanders are bound to their nations' ships, in this case it means that William Halsey can only be at the helm of American vessels. At the same time you can reassign commanders between their national ships without any penalties as well as switch the skills you're using at will between the battles, so you're quite free in your experiments! Now, let's unpack what we're seeing on the screenshot above. Obviously we're dealing with William "Bull" Halsey, and he is one of several commanders you'll be able to get acquainted with and cause some naval destruction together. Going back to the screenshot, you can see that Fleet Admiral Halsey is at the 5th rank, which is effectively his combat level, determining the skills available to him and his proficiency with each of them. Commander skills give passive bonuses to particular stats of a ship. Each commander will have a base trait, and 5 tiers of skills to choose from. At this point we have 2 skills per tier, but that is subject to change. What we plan to achieve is for you to always have some choice when it comes to picking a skill, whichever class you may prefer. Halsey's base trait "Sixth Sense" grants the ship he commands additional torpedo detection range. This helps with spotting torpedoes a second or so earlier, which can mean the difference between sinking or carrying on with the battle. The skill selected in the picture, "On Second Thought", speeds up the reload time of main battery when switching shells, but requires the guns to be loaded first. This is useful in several scenarios and mostly for battleships and cruisers, when fighting against angled opponents or simply ships with thick armor that cruiser AP shells just can not overmatch. Moving along the skill trees you will always have a choice, for example Halsey's other option on the 2nd tier is "Reaching Out", it allows low caliber guns (of up to 139 mm) to fire farther away, thereby giving Bull's ship a slight edge in distance. This is particularly useful for destroyers' main batteries as well as battleship secondaries and translates indirectly into damage dealt. You might notice that each skill has a ribbon underneath it, these ribbons indicate what kind of skill it is. Red ribbon stands for "confrontation" - skills most useful for direct battle situations, meaning they affect your aiming and firing capabilities. "Survivability" denoted with a green ribbon is just that - skills that make your ship live longer in a battle, be it through boosting Damage Control Party or giving an HP percentage increase or anything to allow your ship to withstand more punishment. There are skills that combine both, like one of Halsey's legendary skills - "Intuitive" which prolongs Hydroacoustic Search and Surveillance Radar's active time as well as shows the direction of where the closest enemy ship is. Some skills, regardless of being Confrontation and/or Survivability skills, can also belong to "Unity"category, if they benefit other members of your team. All of the skills in the trees except for base traits have four mastery levels which increase automatically as you rank up your commander. Depending on the tier, particular skills increase in mastery on specific commander ranks. Base traits' mastery, however, increases with each rank. To rise in rank you use Commander XP that is earned in a similar way as Ship XP. Commander XP, however, is always stored in a shared pool and you need to spend it on a particular commander to progress through ranks. To advance past particular ranks (7,11) you will also need to use promotion items, that you'll be able to earn by completing tasks and combat missions. After rank 16, to advance your commander you no longer need XP but rather a different kind of promotional item. At this point he can maximize his base skill mastery acquiring additional effects as well as gain access to legendary skills. Be advised that the feature is still a work in progress and there's going to be influx of new faces and skills alike in the future. Some art, descriptions and effects are still not final. When we go live you will have commanders available for both nations so you'll be able to start your and their journey right away.

And where is the Yamato? This is a question we get from you, Legends, and it seems that the time to have the talk is now. For those of you who prefer short-form reading we can say this: Yamato will enter the ship roster at some point. The statement is true for many of her peers as well. If that's enough to alleviate your reservations - good! If you'd like to get a deeper look into the actions behind development - read on. Legends is a game about XX century warships. It is quite obvious that it would be incomplete without such iconic and legendary (see what we did here?) ship as the Yamato. She, together with her counterparts from other nations will have to be looked at again from the balance perspective before she is reborn as the pinnacle of the Japanese battleship branch. We can't yet say which tier she will occupy, and how many tiers there will be eventually, but the ceiling is going to be raised most likely. For now, seven tiers are set in stone. Now let's talk about why she's not among the Legends from the very beginning. Our PC players are familiar with the shifts one experiences while moving along the tiers. Very basic gameplay on tier I ships - gun boats, then protected cruisers and dreadnoughts on tiers II and III which continue the "pew-pew" motif while introducing destroyers and battleships, following tiers are centered around WWI dreadnought and post-dreadnought era vessels. Tier VI, VII and VIII are mostly WWII ships, while IX and X are reserved for the top performers of WWII and post-war years. Yamato is a hallmark tier X ship that, thanks to her armor and armament, became a pinnacle that had to be matched at the tier balance-wise, and that's why we had to look for inspiration within some of the projects that were not finished in steel. Those parameters of her also mean that there's quite a drastic shift in gameplay once you reach tier X. What adds another layer of complexity for her implementation is the amount of information you need to consume and digest when playing a tier X ship. That includes, but is not limited to: long range fire fights, being aware of destroyers and torpedoes, smokescreens, many cooldowns that need to be tracked, later on - carrier aviation. In addition, thanks to the weaponry available at the tier, mistakes become severely more costly than on tier VIII for example and you need to plan your actions significantly ahead. Don't forget that we're also bringing battleships closer to action. All of the above mentioned factors need to be kept in mind and on the screen. PC version presumes that you're fairly close to your monitor, therefore the UI elements can be comparatively small. Console use case is aimed at the "couch" experience first and foremost, where the average player will sit several feet away from the screen, so the elements need to be quite a bit more obvious and large while the overall amount of info that we can relay to the player is somewhat limited. Gamepad also affects player's situational awareness due to the difference in camera controls with the PC counterpart. Now that we have the information flow under control, we can touch upon the team size and match maker. Both 9v9 configuration and +1/-1 match maker will allow you to find battles fast and those battles are never going to have a more that a single tier discrepancy. Remember that playstyle does shift every couple of tiers and ability to find a match independent of which you prefer. Another factor for choosing those particular numbers and rules is that we're going to have 2 separate platforms that unfortunately do not allow for cross play. We do expect a wide player base eventually, but we still need to start somewhere. To sum it up, current conditions and configuration will allow for comfortable flow of data from the TV screen to the player thanks to the clean UI, quick matchmaking, independent of which console you choose or which tier you prefer, dynamic battles, and a sea of opportunities for growth. But the starting point for release is the one we find optimal. Fear not, Yamato will enter the picture, you just have to exercise some patience 🙂

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-46474363/remains-of-uss-bonhomme-richard-found-off-yorkshire-coast May be of interest to history buffs. She was a revolutionary war era frigate.

08:00 UTC, Dec 21st according to their social media.

Very likely yes! We are adding subs to the PC? Where do you get your informations. Not even i know this.

yes and we want this as well - only because we have 7 tiers doesn't mean we will let out all the other "Legends" like Yamato etc. There is always room for more but for the beginning we need to see how it works out. There will be more Tech-Trees coming (soontm) very "shortly" after release and a lot of other "legendary" ships will come as well. But for the Monsters we need some more time 😉

Can't make such guarantees yet. I can guarantee you ships that you have seen + more, extra maps and 4K/HDR support on release 😉 For the foreseeable future 9v9 is the way. Again, 2 platforms and a new game. We need an efficient match maker. What I mean is it's good at any viewing distance.

Well we made it clear from the get go that there won't be a Yamato in the Game on launch, or the bismarck as well so... If you say it is a "huge mistake" i have to dissagree - since we have a clear communication with our players. They see what we have, and what we don't have. So only because you are upset that probably your most favourite ship is not in the game, doesnt allow you to make up some half true allegations. And trust me, if you have someone here that want the Yamato (or any of the PC's T10 ships) in the game more than i do, then please point him out to me 😉 Proof: oh and btw. No... we rather think "lets make it right and don't release a ship like the Yamato right now and screw up everything" ;D Or how would you see would the balancing work out right now?

13.6 GB.

@PietroMaximoff i think you make a good point about how people choose to play their games. I'm in my 40's and I still sit directly in front of my tv just like I did when I was a kid playing Atari/NES. Although I will admit it does no favors for my back lol.

Legends! A warm welcome to all our new Captains to this forum! Some of you may have registered via console and now have a name that you could not choose! If you want to do this afterwards you can find the setting here: https://wowslegends.com/settings/ We are sorry for the circumstances but hope that this workaround will help solving this issue. Turn the Tide! PS: This beautiful picture is brought to you by Paint - Paint: helping to create memes since 1995

Chaoticaly fun!

so no indicator when you are spotted, no torpedo warnings in the hud, no reload time indicator, no HP bars shown, no indicator on the reload time of your consumeables, no minimap, no team overview, no point indicator - sounds fun to me 😄

Seems like they are simply not associating Microsoft with Xbox lol

for me you have an active microsoft integration - so not linked with PS4 you account is shown with a microsoft integration as well spamming more "?????????????" will not help 😛 yeah ive seen it but i was unable to act since i was dead in the bed 😄 so if someone would send me a screenshot what you exactly mean? all of your profiles are linked with microsoft not PSN network. (i get the information from the Admin pannel )

@im_a_rich_pilot2, absolutely, we've dropped the NDA today.

An expensive free to play game lol

there will be no "premium ammo" in this game!

Yes you will - once you will receive the E-Mail with a Code there will be an instruction. The Mailing will start on the 18.12. - the CB Weekend will start on the 21.12.

Xbox One and PS4. 360 and Switch can't handle it. And what sane game developer would support and hold themselves back on a 13 year old console? 🤔

Anyone from China？ I live in Shanghai and play WOWS on PC currently. I have Xbox One X and can't wait playing WOWS on my console.

im hoping that premium Ammo is locked to just gold and it can’t be brought with silver