Source – http://blog.worldofwarplanes.eu/2015/01/15/update-1-7-preview/
New Aircraft
Among the most anticipated features we’d like to emphasize the introduction of a new attack aircraft branch – the German one, including the legendary Stuka.
The new branch includes very interesting machines that have unique gameplay styles which allow multiple choice of tactics ranging from standard ground target attacks to possibilities to shoot down enemy aircraft of various classes. German attack aircraft can compete with USSR analogs successfully, and skilled players will be able to cause quite a bit of trouble to enemy fighters as well.
These machines are not easy to fly, but they are really unique. Both newcomers and advanced players will find them enjoyable and quite possibly many of you will change your attitude to attack aircraft class.
Two New Maps
Update 1.7 will introduce two new game locations.
Province is suitable for Tier III-X battles. It’s relatively flat and large. The battles will be taking place at spring. Province has a variety of canyons and plateaus, as well as several towns linked together by bridges.
Observatory is a winter map that consists of a lot of mountain ridges and a wide canyon in the middle. The location’s design will allow players to use landscape variety to gain tactical advantage. The battles taking place there will include Tier IV-X aircraft.
Both maps are quite large – 12.6 km, which is the same size as, say, the Lighthouse.
Also we have worked on the maps already in the game. El Hallouf and Winter War now have rearranged AA gun layouts, the Fortress map was tuned so that the attack aircraft are spawned on both flanks, several maps have ground objects and ships rearranged. Also we’ve optimized the map loading mechanics so you will enter battles faster.
New In-Game Events
Starting with Update 1.7 we’re introducing a new type of events – daily missions. Many of you have already seen similar missions during the winter holidays event. A daily mission contains a specific task that awards players with in-game credits or XP points for completion. The missions are chosen randomly for each account and renewed every day. They are tuned in such a way that a player will be able to complete them while playing as usual without unnecessary grind and get a reward. What differs them from unique missions that are assigned during the specials and other in-game events is that daily missions can be repeatable since they are assigned randomly. Each player will get three daily missions, if he won’t be able to complete all of them – they will stay available for the following days until they’re completed.
The daily missions have three difficulty levels. Difficulty levels two and three become available when a player researches a Tier IV and Tier VII aircraft respectively. NB: they can be completed on an any aircraft of any Tier – they’re just harder than the most basic missions. In future updates we plan to add a possibility to cancel a daily mission if a player doesn’t like it, and replace it with another one.
Training Rooms Improvement
You might remember that we’ve recently mentioned training rooms as a feature that is currently in active development. Well, here it is! Features added in Update 1.7 will improve experience for tournament players and usual pilots quite significantly.
After Update 1.7 you’ll be able to change the aircraft and its setup without leaving the training room. The creator of the room will be able to change maps or room description, battle duration without recreating it first. Also we added a feature to remove all bots with a single click, and limit visibility of players in the lobby and in the teams to the creator only. We’re going to continue improving the training rooms in future update.
Advanced Markers Configuration
Improving the game’s user interface is one of the priorities at the moment. Update 1.7 will finally introduce advanced marker tuning features that we promised to add a while ago. The configuration menu will allow you to set up visibility distances for each part of the markers for aircraft and ground objects separately, as well as tune markers for each aircraft class.
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| Aircraft markers configuration menu | Ground objects markers configuration menu |
Matchmaker and Team Setup Changes
Matchmaker will change slightly as well. The goal is to further reduce amount of battles where one class of aircraft is dominant in setups, and to make the amount of aircraft of different Tiers and classes in one battle close to their amount in the battle queue. For instance, if attack aircraft represent 10% of all the aircraft of the Tier needed for the battle in the queue – there should be 10% of them in the battle once it’s formed.
Auto-Search Flight Member
If you’ve started playing just recently, or your contact list doesn’t contain many friends, and you see how allies and enemies are joining battles in flights and devastate single pilots with their teamwork – the new Auto-Search Flight Member feature will come to the rescue! The system adds a possibility to automatically create a flight by finding another flight member on a suitable Tier aircraft. This system is added with a basic functionality at the moment, and once we see that it becomes popular – we’ll improve it further, for example add the possibility to choose a flight member manually. But right now – let’s try the upcoming version out!
Work on improving the matchmaker and team setup balancing is continuing, we’re planning to introduce more sophisticated logics in future Updates. One of the ways to balance classes and significantly shorten wait times in queue will be filling rooms with insufficient player counts with much more sophisticated bots which we’re planning to implement in Update 1.8.
Sound Improvements
We’ve made significant progress in improving sound features in the game. The most significant changes that you’ll see in Update 1.7 are reworked sounds of weapons, plane hits as well as their logics. Also we’ve retuned engine sounds.
Rewards for Public Test Participation
The Public Test for Update 1.7 will be starting shortly, and with it we’re adding a 10-tier reward for its participants. When a player joins the Public Test for any of the upcoming updates and successfully completes a minimum amount of special missions he will get a medal.
Public Test Participant medal
Three ranks (IX to VII) of Public Test Specialist bronze medals
Three ranks (VI to IV) of Public Test Expert silver medals
Three ranks (III to I) of Public Test Master golden medals.
The reward rank progresses with each Public Testing you participate in. More information on the medals and what they are awarded for will be published once Public Test 1.7 starts.
All these changes, as well as more minor improvements will be covered once we publish the official Update 1.7 patchnote – which will be quite soon. We hope you will like the Update 1.7 and are eager to read your opinion on it on the Public Test feedback forum.
See you in the skies, pilots!
