Wargaming is one of the most successful European developers and publishers, but they know very well that they will not benefit from the success of World of Tanks forever. So they try to expand their activities in many ways. They buy studios, publish games of others, or establish cooperation with larger or smaller names of the game business (which they showed us in the form of Total War: Arena or currently in Pagan Online). They are also expanding their audience and, since they already have PC players, they want to reach the console. With the tanks, they did quite well, so they continue their military trilogy.
They entered the console waters with the recent edition of World of Warships: Legends. Oh be careful. You might think you know this game if you played World of Warhips on a PC, but the opposite is true. Like World of Tanks and World of Tanks: Mercenaries, ships may have a common starting line, but the games themselves are quite different. There are two different teams behind them, even the technologies themselves have some differences. Finally, they want to get closer to a different audience with different gameplay.
However, if you already have some experience with Wargaming games, you will surely get into this. Not to try to attract new players here, but I'm not quite sure they are doing well. It is true that they are trying to guide you through the basics of the game, also thanks to fights against artificial intelligence, which you have to go through a few to get into multiplayer battles later. However, they still leave many aspects of the game in which they let you fumble. So, for example, you will learn how to use your ship's skills, how to attack correctly, how to unpack lootboxes, but you will be more lost in different parts of the gaming economy. And you have to admit that in a free to play game, the game could really get to know which game name and experience points are used to buy or improve one thing or another.
And the free to play model will be devoted to the game itself. This follows exactly the same tracks that stretch across other Worlf of Tanks / Warships / Warplanes games. So you play for free, but you can buy a premium currency, premium ships, or premium days when you get more for your battles. None of this gives you a direct advantage in combat, even if the balance of premium ships is in controversy. The truth is that they have unlocked slots for upgrades right now and you have to unlock them for the rest, but apart from the Russian destroyer Gremyashchy, I had no impression that some of the premium ships were significantly stronger than the non-premium ships.
I do not perceive the monetization model as aggressive in terms of giving the paying players stronger cards directly in combat. With an ordinary ship, you can sink a premium, unless of course you make a mistake in combat. But if you do not pay, prepare for the grind lessons, as is already the case in such games. It takes you considerably longer to get experience, money, and therefore ships, upgrades and commanders. You can only help by fulfilling various challenges and missions that change on a daily, weekly or monthly basis or are tied to ships.
This will take you through the lower stages of the boat for a long time, and it will take you a long time to get to level IV or V. There are a total of seven stages, and until you are clear that you spend the opening hours at the lower ones. a little too long. Especially if you want to try different lines of technology trees. At the beginning of the fight are smaller, slower, so you do not mind that you steer a century old piece that does not do much damage, but does not last much. It starts to be more interesting from the threes, when the ships gain strength and stamina, which will be reflected in the battles that will start to enjoy you more and slowly start to enjoy the game more and more.
World of Warships: Legends currently offers three technology trees: USA, Japan, United Kingdom. You will find such historic ships of these powers, and we believe that the game will grow more. A hint of the Soviet Navy here is the aforementioned premium destroyer, but it is the only ship outside the three major nations. Each tree starts with one ship and gradually branches into three game classes: destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Missing aircraft carriers, which can be found in the PC version.
Destroyers are the weakest, but their job is to destroy the strongest competition - they are the fastest, best manageable, and the combination of these characteristics with torpedoes is to make sure you come out of the battles victorious. At the other end are battleships - they are massive, slow, reloading weapons lasts forever, but withstand the most. You can help defending checkpoints, if necessary, but also fire enemies from a long distance with a huge range. Somewhere between these two extremes are cruisers.
From my point of view, it is best for newbies to start combat ships. They can do a lot and even if they are slow and the action is less frequent (because you have to wait 30 seconds to load weapons and I'm not talking about the low speed of the guns), but you last longer, you can stay away from action and even the worst and you get some hits, besides extinguishing a ship in the event of a fire (what you can do with each ship) you can supplement part of the lost "life". As you play harder in the game, you will find it easier to switch to weaker ships with other advantages, but ultimately depends on you and your playing style.
In any case, Legends is more action and faster than PC sibling. Gradually run into 9v9 battles against live enemies. I don't even need to talk about gamepad-personalized and simplified controls. Still, the base is the same - first you have to detect the enemy, then you have to aim appropriately with the movement of your and the enemy ship and finally shoot. Whether torpedoes or main guns, you must always remember that when a ship is moving, you must not aim directly at it. In addition, you have to take into account that your weapons must aim for a while. In other words, try to play so that you do not have to rotate your weapons 180 degrees, because you have earned a big problem and while your weapons are aiming for a new target, you can long be just a wreck.
Plus it's still a team multiplayer game. It is ideal to communicate with your teammates, but even if you are not in a chalet together, never try to play solo. If you are alone in the enemy superiority, your game will end very quickly, return to the menu and you can choose another ship, with which you embark on a new fight. It is worth fighting in groups and ideally being covered by a battleship that covers you from a distance. You also need to think about how to actually hit the enemy and what. Ideally, you should hit the enemy ship in a way that causes fire or diving. Explosive missiles are suitable for smaller and weaker ships, for the stronger ones you need to go piercing to overcome the armor in the first place.
I admit that I did not expect the game to catch me so much, but over time you really gained me with its gameplay. While it is true that of the more than 50 ships, most ordinary players will not be able to get to it, but if you already find yours, you can have a good time playing faster but still tactical on 15 very well designed maps. There you fight mainly for control points, and the way to victory is actually two - either you get more points than the opponent for filling points, or simply destroy all opponents. You can still win on time, but rarely a battle lasts until the countdown ends.
You can edit and improve your ships, and you can also put temporary boosts on them to, for example, increase the amount of experience you gain for the fight. You can distinguish between the flags and camouflage of your ship. In combat, however, make more use of a smoke screen, which you can equip. The same is true of several other improvements for different ships. However, the commanders also bring improvements. You can assign a ship to one of many commanders for each available nation. Commanders bring passive enhancements with them, and you also level them to get more from these enhancements or make them more accessible. You often have to choose which of the three enhancements to choose at a particular level. It further diversifies playing, but it also pushes into grind as there are separate experience points for this.
Wargaming did a very decent job in the audiovisual side of the game. Legends simply looks very good, albeit quite simply given the environment in which the game takes place. Boat models are elaborated in detail and can be enjoyed in the dock. They will also enjoy pleasant effects, whether it is smoke, fire or other. Paradoxically, the torpedo impact sometimes lacks the effect, but perhaps they will fix it as soon as possible. On more powerful consoles, the overall visual also helps HDR support. Also, the sound is very well processed here, you can orientate it in the fight and the music knows exactly when to come to the fore to help the fighting atmosphere.
If you like multi-player action, where you sometimes need to move your mind and play with the team, World of Warships: Legends may be right for you. You don't have to invest a single penny to play it from time to time. But if you are serious about the game, you will probably not be able to get by without paying at least a premium account. Progress through the game is quite slow and from the middle of the stage you start spending more time than you would like. This is a pity and can demotivate. It is still a fun game, very well adapted to the consoles, and as Wargaming continues to expand, its potential will increase.
