Incredibly - WG changed DevBlog article after 1 day - Massachusetts and Musashi will NOt bet even moderate buff...

[Jakob Knight]

As far as the issue of WG nerfing Premiums, it should be noted there are divisions to this issue.

 

Special Ships are like Premium Ships, but are the result of in-game currency purchases.  WG has never been overly hesitant to adjust these as in-game currency is considered not real currency legally and the means a player obtained the specific currency credits that were used to obtain the item is not traceable to a specific real-world purchase (those could be credits purchased with real money or ones the player earned in the game without real money).

 

Premium Ships fall into two general categories.  Old Guard and New Ships.

 

Old Guard ships are those dating from the start of the game to just before April 2021 (estimated).  These ships were largely purchased through the game store with real money, and so national laws on merchandise transactions could be applied.  This made and still makes WG very hesitant to specifically alter these ships except by global changes that affect all applicable ships in the game because of the lack of what caused the New Ships to appear.

 

New Ships are Premium Ships that have been put into the game during or after April 2021.  These Premiums include a disclaimer that WG reserves the right to change these ships as they deem necessary.  As a result of this disclaimer, WG is much more in the clear to alter these ships without a likely challenge in court.

 

WG could always alter any part of the game, but in the case of the Old Guard ships, they might have had to pay an external price for doing so under the various different national laws.  They chose not to test those waters unless they had to, and generally did so under the blanket of a global nerf (which is how they handled nerfing the Yubari when they decided she was overperforming against CV planes).

 

 

Edited January 12 by Jakob Knight

[clammboy]

1 hour ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

As if anyone's opinion on value loss but the customer's matters...

😄

Well we are all customers lol.

Edited January 12 by clammboy

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

52 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

WG could always alter any part of the game, but in the case of the Old Guard ships, they might have had to pay an external price for doing so under the various different national laws.  They chose not to test those waters unless they had to, and generally did so under the blanket of a global nerf (which is how they handled nerfing the Yubari when they decided she was overperforming against CV planes).

I could argue quite convincingly that there is no actual legal difference between the current disclaimer and the situation with the old guard premiums. In BOTH CASES, WarGaming EXPLICITLY stated their retention of the right to modify or remove any ship for any reason.

I doubt that WG has ever actually said that they were selling the actual ownership of digital ships...merely the use of them.

I therefore find the idea that there are somehow different rules for updating old premiums to be a playerbase delusion...a delusion that WG has fostered over the years because it was useful to drive revenue and sales.

[Jakob Knight]

42 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

I could argue quite convincingly that there is no actual legal difference between the current disclaimer and the situation with the old guard premiums. In BOTH CASES, WarGaming EXPLICITLY stated their retention of the right to modify or remove any ship for any reason.

I doubt that WG has ever actually said that they were selling the actual ownership of digital ships...merely the use of them.

I therefore find the idea that there are somehow different rules for updating old premiums to be a playerbase delusion...a delusion that WG has fostered over the years because it was useful to drive revenue and sales.

Actually, prior to the inclusion of the disclaimer, they did not explicitly reserve the right to change a product sold to a consumer.  They reserved the right to make changes to the game, but there was enough grey area on the subject of Premium Ships that it was not worth testing.  The inclusion of the disclaimer was a direct clarification of that right, but could not cover sales prior to its inclusion, which is why you have not seen major nerf changes to just Old Guard ships, and the nerfing of Yubari (yes, they specifically called out that ship as a cause of it) required a global change to all AA guns to cover it.

While they could pursue a court case defending themselves with the EULA wording, it was a substantial chance the various courts around the world might decide failure to specifically spell it out at time of sale would fall under Bait And Switch legislation.  With the disclaimer, that case is solidified (in WG's favor).

 

 

Edited January 12 by Jakob Knight
Clarification as to the direction the case was solidified.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

25 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

Actually, prior to the inclusion of the disclaimer, they did not explicitly reserve the right to change a product sold to a consumer.  They reserved the right to make changes to the game, but there was enough grey area on the subject of Premium Ships that it was not worth testing.  The inclusion of the disclaimer was a direct clarification of that right, but could not cover sales prior to its inclusion, which is why you have not seen major nerf changes to just Old Guard ships, and the nerfing of Yubari (yes, they specifically called out that ship as a cause of it) required a global change to all AA guns to cover it.

While they could pursue a court case defending themselves with the EULA wording, it was a substantial chance the various courts around the world might decide failure to specifically spell it out at time of sale would fall under Bait And Switch legislation.  With the disclaimer, that case is solidified (in WG's favor).

 

 

As I see it, the disclaimer clarified what WG intended all along...

I think we are reasonably close in our assessment, and the actual reality would only be known if someone actually did call WG to court over it...which I would think shouldn't need to happen.

WG has pretty much refrained from too much meddling in premium ship stats.

[Crokodone]

On 1/6/2024 at 1:25 AM, richie_macrophage said:

Remember that ships like Belfast, Lenin, Enterprise, and Georgia are also considered "OP", are among the top in win rates for their class and tier, but they get completely normal ASW airstrike range and no one bats an eye. Belfast in particular literally gets airstrikes while Fiji and Edinburgh get ship-mounted depth charges.

The same applies to tech tree ships. Ships that people consider OP like St. Vincent, Petropavlovsk, etc all have regular ASW and that was never controversial at any point.

ASW range was never, and should never be used as a balancing measure.

To be fair, Belfast doesn't get a heal whereas Fiji and Edinburgh do. It's a trade off.