Gaishu_Isshoku

It was restricted because of the combination of Early Access with the unique plane capability. Hybrids are quite different in what they bring to the table from other ships, so we felt it would be best to leave it restricted until most players could get their hands on her.

Thanks for the feedback - I take it seriously and we are actively working to make the restrictions/bans for Clan Battles more responsive. Unobtainable ships, or early access ships, or premiums, that are too strong (ex. Smaland this season, Musashi/Georgia in T9) can and will receive restrictions/bans; regarding Petro, it had received a few nerfs and it took some time for the data to show that it was still quite effective (duh in hindsight). I'm sorry you feel this way about Loui being unrestricted with early access ending, but the ship does have significant tradeoffs compared to other battleships and we feel it's worth seeing what kind of impact it will have on the CB meta. Hope you'll come back to give it another try sometime.

Queue dumps occur whenever someone has waited too long - super CVs are especially prone to this since they have a rather small player base and require another super CV specifically; other class restrictions can be relaxed, CV requiring another CV cannot. We know queue dumps can be frustrating to play in and we are looking at ways to reduce their frequency.

Good to see you in game! GGs

Let me give you my favorite patent; a way for you to walk your pet snake on a leash :D https://patents.google.com/patent/US6490999B1/en As far as I'm aware, no one is actually making snake collars as a product. Does the matchmaking patent exist? Yes. Are we using it for WoWs? No.

I can assure you that the Random Battles matchmaking has no regard whatsoever for player skill, win streaks, or loss streaks. The primary concern of the matchmaker is getting players into matches quickly; something like what you are describing would be a huge burden on that.

The official/formal stance is always that we can't say anything about collabs until they are announced :(

Thanks, will investigate!

I do feel like we could do a better job of highlighting concrete changes from feedback. Humphrey's shell velocity buff, Petro nerfs, the current AA/deployable fighter system in testing (fingers crossed ), CB ship restrictions, increased importance on spotting for economic rewards, upcoming improvements to getting stuck on islands, the recent alternate domination settings being tested (aimed at addressing both matches that end too quickly and go too long), the operations rework, etc. are all current and upcoming things I can point to that feedback has an important role in. Is there still more to work on? Absolutely, and I know there are a million things you guys will point out to me that haven't been addressed - live service games are an ongoing process :) While I doubt that we will be sharing our work schedules with you guys, maybe the most relevant piece of information I can share here (and I'm sure you've heard this) is that ship models take a long time to make and then there is the whole testing process to go through. New ship lines are the heart of the game's content and key to both keeping existing players engaged and attracting new ones.

Thanks for taking the time to lay your thoughts out in a video like this :) I'll go through point by point and try to address your concerns. Population wise, I mostly agree - there's a lot of doomsaying but we're mainly seeing a drop off from the COVID high. We'll see what the trends look like going forward. Separate permanent, "for fun" game mode - not likely to happen as a permanent mode. Brawls, Ranked, Clan Battles, etc. all exist as a different experience from Randoms, along with our occasional events such as Airship Escort, Hot Tub, etc. The main issue with keeping these separate modes around is two fold - they take players from the Randoms queue, which is the primary lifeblood of the game, and additionally they tend to see player dropoff over time which can make it difficult to keep up decent queue times. Modes like Arms Race (and yes, Airship Escort) have a high chance of being implemented into Randoms with enough positive reception. If you're mainly looking for a mode where you can just not care about stats, I would recommend making your stats private or link-only. In the end, you're the only one responsible for assigning value to your ingame stats. As for other Wargaming products - these are developed by entirely different studios, with completely separate teams. Their continued operation really has no material effect on our development. We are currently hiring pretty extensively in conjunction with development's move to Belgrade, Serbia. Veteran player retention - a game like WoWs doesn't make it to nearly 8 years old without retaining invested players (and also attracting new ones). There's a common perception of WG targeting the brand new, 0 battles player and getting them to spend hundreds of dollars immediately, but this is really not common at all. What we want most is players to stick around and stay invested in the game, not to come in, spend some money, and leave. Operations - I don't want to harp on this, but development doesn't have infinite resources, especially given somewhat recent events. Our core focus has been and will be on delivering new content for the most players possible. That being said, as you know, operations did get a substantial rework recently and they are something we would love to expand on. It's just not likely to happen tomorrow. I'm sorry you feel like we don't do a good enough job of responding to everybody on these and other forums. I assure you that we read likely 95+% of content posted here and do our best to convey that feedback upwards.

Been around since Closed Beta myself :)

I've tried to play Elbing a few times in CB personally :D It never ends well unfortunately :(

If what you describe ends up being the case, it will certainly be a very big change from previous metas :) Large cruiser spam has seldom been a problem in the past because of their relative lack of tankiness vs fires in comparison to BBs. The BBs that don't have 30mm overmatch like Montana are also better BB picks against them, since Stalingrad/PR have decks which are thicker than 30mm; the overmatch just isn't relevant in this case. Montana was one of the most popular BBs last season at all levels of play despite not overmatching 30mm armor (and being one of the oldest ships in the game). There are definitely reasons to take non-overmatch BBs; they tend to be more consistent in their gunnery and Montana for ex. has a powerful heal.

It's not really a matter of "need". Last season was rather long compared to most seasons, and had a pretty consistent meta. The thought process here is that removing the category of BBs which overmatch 30mm armor should promote a different set of lineups than we saw last season, in addition to the format change to 1 BB after 3 weeks. Again, this is essentially an experimental season. Generally speaking, Kleber and Marceau were popular, but not near Smaland levels, and lineups running more than 2 of them were generally quite rare. Regardless, they are something we will be keeping a close eye on this upcoming season to see if this restriction needs to change. Thunderer, Preussen, and Republique all fall under the 30mm overmatch category, in this case.

This season is a bit of an experiment. Considering last season was quite long and similar in format (7v7, TX, 2 BB), we're looking to see how more extensive restrictions and limits will change up the meta. I think it will be particularly interesting to see how the change in format to 1 BB 3 weeks into the season affects the meta. The maps are also quite different from usual. Regarding Smaland in particular, banning a ship completely is a difficult choice, but in this case she has historically been one of the most popular DD picks. She fills the competitive DD role a little too well - we'll be watching what effect her restriction has on the meta.