The new kid on the block

With update 13.0, Wargaming has introduced an in-game information tool to World of Warships. Is it time to lay quartersbrief to rest?

The World of Warships info tool

With the first update of the new year, Wargaming has introduced an in-game information tool into the game. Hovering over or clicking on a ship in the team lineup display will now open a tooltip displaying choice parameters of the selected ship. This includes basic ship data as well as armament and consumable information. Characteristics such as concealment, speed, caliber or consumable suite are now accessible from directly within the game.

This obviously provides a level of integration and ease of access that quartersbrief as a standalone tool can never hope to match. Still, that does not make quartersbrief obsolete. Rather, I believe that the new mechanism, instead of replacing it, complements quartersbrief.

Information is everything

First, upon a closer look, there are still several areas in which quartersbrief far exceeds the capabilities of the new in-game tool. While the latter is enough to get basic information about your enemies and allies, quartersbrief frequently digs much deeper. For example, smoke firing penalty and torpedo launcher configuration are both absent from the new tool, but accessible in quartersbrief. Not even to mention armor information or player winrates, which the in-game tool doesn’t have at all.

Additionally, quartersbrief includes higher-level analyses that do not directly map to a single in-game value. An example of this is knife fighting value, which is a conglomerate of ammo types, dpm and hitpoint pool.

A different paradigm

Crucially, quartersbrief also follows a different presentation paradigm from the in-game tool (or, in fact, any of the third-party information tools known to me). The in-game tool is organised on a per-ship basis: You select a ship, and the tool will tell you about that ship. Quartersbrief, on the other hand, lays out its information topically: It groups information together according to certain categories, than compares the ships in the battle within those categories.

An example. Both tools provide concealment information, which is probably the core characteristic of destroyer play. But while the in-game tool would require you to click on every single ship to assess how good your concealment is relative to your opposition, quartersbrief directly shows a comparison of all ships’ detectability. This is a crucial difference, as it allows you to shape your strategy at a glance: One look at the concealment topic, and you know whether to aggressively cap early game, or take a more cautious approach.

The power of images

Quartersbrief goes to greath lengths to present its information graphically. This is because graphical information can be grasped, interpreted and retained much better by the human brain than textual information. For this reason, graphical presentation of information is one of the core principles of quartersbrief.

I take great care to display information in clear, concise charts that strike a careful balance between providing the core characteristics at first glance while not overloading the chart with too much information. (With the secondary data usually available when needed through overlays.)

Thus, not only is it easier gauging the relative strengths and weaknesses of your ship because of the way information is layed out, but also because of the way it is presented.

Peaceful coexistence

Quartersbrief was always and is still primarily intended as a tool for the beginning of the battle. It is meant chiefly for those thirty seconds while the battle is loading, and the initial lull while you transit into your fighting position. In that time, it provides a quick assessment of your enemies and, in some cases, allies, and thereby supports you in deciding your opening moves. Do you have a stealth advantage over your opposition? Will you be able to tank enemy battleships, or is there too much overmatch? How reliable are the teammates that spawned next to you likely to be? Questions like these dictate how you approach the battle in a fundamental way. Of course, sometimes you will have to refer back at later stages of the battle to refresh your memory, but that first minute of loading and after setting the first course are key.

I believe where the in-game tool may prove more useful is when you need information about a specific ship - most likely the one you are currently fighting. If you need to find out, for example, whether your enemy will be able to run you down if you try to disengage, the in-game tool may be able to provide that information better than quartersbrief. Allowing you to do so from within the game in a semi-transparent overlay has the added advantage of allowing you to retain a higher level of situational awareness than you otherwise could.

Additionally, at least for your allies, the in-game tool shows you their actual parameters, where quartersbrief makes the same build assumptions about allies as about enemies. In the future, quartersbrief may change this to how the in-game tool does it. (Note, however, that out of principle quartersbrief will never divulge information about enemy ships’ actual parameters.)