Changes to the Naval Enduring Confrontation Mode

[Stona_WT]

We’ve seen your feedback regarding the recent changes to Naval Enduring Confrontation and want to explain the reasoning behind these decisions. Here’s a quick recap of what changed:

• BR-based matchmaking has been enabled, as in Naval Arcade and Realistic Battles
• The requirement to enter with a specific BR ship (4.7–5.0) has been removed — any ship with BR 3.3 or higher can now participate
• The minimum number of players required to start a mission has been reduced
• Spawn Point costs for ships have been removed

What Was Wrong With the Old System

The old mode created an illusion of freedom without actually delivering it. The requirement to enter battle only with BR 4.7–5.0 ships wasn’t an intentional design decision - it was a legacy artifact. When Naval EC was created, the maximum ship BR was 5.7, and the entire system was built around that. Since then, ship BRs have grown far beyond those limits, but the mode went untouched for a long time.

Imagine unlocking the Oktjabrskaja Revoljutsija battleship at BR 6.7, only to find you can’t take it into EC right away - you first have to grind through 4.7-5.0. Players joining an active session were forced to fight at 4.7-5.0 against those who had already accumulated points and moved up to more powerful ships. Once one team stockpiled enough high-tier vessels, the other simply couldn’t make a comeback, no amount of tactics or skill could bridge that gap. The longer the battle went on, the more hopeless the position of the losing team became.

What Changed and Why

BR-based matchmaking now works the same way as in regular Naval battles, and Spawn Point costs for ships have been disabled - this eliminates situations where a newcomer in a cruiser faces a veteran who has stockpiled points and is fielding a top-tier battleship.

The goal of these changes is to remove artificial entry barriers and level the playing field within sessions. You can now join Enduring Confrontation in any ship with BR 3.3 or higher. Just pick your favorite ship and play.

The initial results have been effective: the number of players in EC missions has grown more than fourfold compared to the old system.

Where We’re Heading

Splitting sessions by BR means fewer players per bracket than we’d like - and bots fill some of those spots. That’s exactly why making EC a permanent sub-mode is such an important step: more players in the queue means fewer bots in sessions. We covered the new in-hangar mode selection dropdown in our Community Update No.12.

In the next major update, Naval Enduring Confrontation will become a permanent sub-mode — you’ll be able to switch to it directly below the “To Battle” button. Choose “Classic mode”, “Enduring Confrontation”, or queue for both at once - in which case you’ll be placed in a shared queue and matched into whichever battle becomes available first.

We expect the player base for this mode to keep growing over time, to the point where sessions across all BR brackets can be filled without the reliance on bots. We’re monitoring the stats and your feedback, and if the number of bots in sessions needs further adjustment, we’ll make the necessary changes.

[ILuvAna_De_Armas]

Boteblog kinda

[WolfGTR]

Is there any plans for enabling grinding the naval events in EC, since right now you are just limited to standard battles

[ScimitarsCurse]

I like what naval could be. This is a step in the right direction, but there needs to still be an extreme amount of work put in before WT naval competes with its peers (notably WoWS or sea power)

[Der_Zerkquetscher]

Thanks for the clarification most oof my concerns still stand.

@Stona_WT

When Naval EC was created, the maximum ship BR was 5.7, and the entire system was built around that. Since then, ship BRs have grown far beyond those limits, but the mode went untouched for a long time.

I understand that back then the entry of 4.7 for free to spawn ships made more sense and there are lots of higher BRs introduced in the meantime. So why not simply increase the BR range for free to spawn ships then?

I just cant imagine everyone being able to spawn a sojuz, iowa or Yamato for free (besides SL ofc) as often as he/she wants and that to be in the same lobby like someone that just wants to play the Hood for example will be a good thing for the mode.

Its still the same problem. Players with lower br battleships will be facing top tier battleships that are almost invulnerable to them. But now the 8.7 ships can be spawned for free. Being able to spawn your best battleships without SP cost attached to it can and will go both ways. And one team having max 7.7 ships while in the enemy team there are multiple people having access to 8.7 ships, and being able to freespawn them will not exactly help. Yes, your team can spawn their best ships for free. But the other team also can. And a sojuz is still multiple times better than a Yamato at the same BR, basically untouchable for everything just 0.3 BR lower and still way better than an Iowa:

Naval RB stats for July 2026:

60% winrate!!!Even though its possible theres also a sojuz in the enemy team! About 2,5 times the K/D of a yamato. That has the same SL and RP modifiers and the same repaircost. While the Sojuz still has a much better firerate. (Reload is a soft nerf stat, anyone remembers that???)

Keep some sort of sp system. But start at 7.7 with ships costing sp???Together with Brackets

And get rid of 4 player matches where 3 people leave 30 min in.

And, as usual for a naval gamemode no matter how good you or your team are working together you will still lose. Not to some first spawn coastal that cap 2 caps 2 min after match start this time, but to a bugged gamemode where one team can simply decide not to kill the entire convoy, which will then spawn the carrier in that area, on repeat, and each time scouting (YES , Bois scout that thing. ffs.) and sinking it takes huge chunks off the other teams ticket pool. You are basically forced to sink your own Convoy with planes for this to stop. How dumb is that please? And we are discussing how can 80% of matches be made recoverable for the losing team…

Or to the enemy team having very favorable attacking spawns like 10 km from one of your ports, for hours on end. While your team has to travel 20 or 30 km to get to an enemy port or the match already ended before your team even starting to get a chance to be attackers

At least you dont have to grind sp for better ships at the abolutely garbage missile boat br range anymore. Thanks for that. Well not for the addition of the missile boats that can easily onetap any destroyer or light cruiser from out of his spawn with his missiles reloading in EC while theres nothing he can do to fight back from 15 km. But for the opportunity of not having to play around that BR range ever again…

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

While some players oppossed the changes, I know of many others, including myself, who loved them. You couldn’t have explained the reasoning behind them better!

I am also very glad to read that EC is about to become a permanent sub-mode, and I’m sure many Naval players will receive these news with great enthusiasm!

@Stona_WT

We expect the player base for this mode to keep growing over time, to the point where sessions across all BR brackets can be filled without the reliance on bots. We’re monitoring the stats and your feedback, and if the number of bots in sessions needs further adjustment, we’ll make the necessary changes.

It also puts a smile on my face to see that you have never, and will never give up on Naval! It is endearing and really incentivizes me to be a part of it efforts by giving it as many chances as necessary.

[RowanFW]

Great news to hear it becoming a permanent mode!

[Beeschurger]

wow, TWO QoL devblogs for one update? I must be dreaming.

Might actually give naval a serious shot.

[GxneralEagle-live]

ehhhhhhh a 4 month grind for a bit boat idk…

[CapitanVVA]

Adding useless bots to the mode wasn’t mentioned at all in the original news item, and it’s barely mentioned in this one!

And judging by a fourfold increase in two days is nonsense!

The fact that work is underway is good and some changes good. But useless BOTS are really, really bad!

[wolftale]

Thank you for providing an explanation for us ship players.

@Stona_WT

In the next major update, Naval Enduring Confrontation will become a permanent sub-mode — you’ll be able to switch to it directly below the “To Battle” button. Choose “Classic mode”, “Enduring Confrontation”, or queue for both at once - in which case you’ll be placed in a shared queue and matched into whichever battle becomes available first.

This section begs the question, however, could we get some improvements to bring this in line with random battles?

For example, the rewards per hour are much lower than in your standard AB/RB match, stats for EC battles are not tracked on your profile performance record, and you can’t participate in events or battle pass tasks while in EC. Without these features, EC is still going to be inferior to random battles for most players. EC might offer a fun variation on regular naval gameplay, but it will ultimately do so at the cost of everything else.

As an aside, I’d also prefer it be brought in line with air sim EC, with the incorporation of rotating BR brackets rather than 1.0 spreads and lobbies to give players more agency about where they play.

[F-16D_Barak_II]

Really good change!

[AurenKarach]

@Stona_WT

The old mode created an illusion of freedom without actually delivering it. The requirement to enter battle only with BR 4.7–5.0 ships wasn’t an intentional design decision - it was a legacy artifact.

@Stona_WT

Splitting sessions by BR means fewer players per bracket than we’d like - and bots fill some of those spots. That’s exactly why making EC a permanent sub-mode is such an important step: more players in the queue means fewer bots in sessions.

This reads very worryingly like AI generated text.

[PacketlossRedux]

Actual great changes. thx

[Aisbitt034-psn]

Boat blog = :)

Not submarines = :(

[Stona_WT]

Original text was in Russian and it was human translated for EN. Sorry if the style hits you in this way ;/ It was not intentional. We tried to provide you an answer today, so less ppl were able to style check it.

[Bombe18]

@Stona_WT

Imagine unlocking the Oktjabrskaja Revoljutsija battleship at BR 6.7, only to find you can’t take it into EC right away - you first have to grind through 4.7-5.0.

What an excuse ! So, players that unlocked all previous event BBs are just useless ?

@Stona_WT

Once one team stockpiled enough high-tier vessels, the other simply couldn’t make a comeback, no amount of tactics or skill could bridge that gap. The longer the battle went on, the more hopeless the position of the losing team became.

Have you ever played naval EC to say this ? I saw many match full of BBs lose because they didnt played the objectives.

@Stona_WT

BR-based matchmaking now works the same way as in regular Naval battles, and Spawn Point costs for ships have been disabled

So, why not to play regular battle ? what the point ? Its faster and players likes it.

@Stona_WT

The initial results have been effective: the number of players in EC missions has grown more than fourfold compared to the old system.

Yeah, we wanted to test it and prove that it bad. And we wants to see statistics in 3 weeks.
Maybe number of battle increased cause only 2 players are needed to start, not the fun inside.
I never saw so many leavers before end of match

Spoiler

@Stona_WT

The goal of these changes is to remove artificial entry barriers and level the playing field within sessions. You can now join Enduring Confrontation in any ship with BR 3.3 or higher. Just pick your favorite ship and play.

Spoiler

@Stona_WT

BR-based matchmaking now works the same way as in regular Naval battles, and Spawn Point costs for ships have been disabled - this eliminates situations where a newcomer in a cruiser faces a veteran who has stockpiled points and is fielding a top-tier battleship.

You never did anything about players that game abus.

Why dont you make this gamemode separatly ?

You destroyed the only GOOD mode of warthunder. I’ll now stop playing WT.
Naval EC WAS the last gamemode that hold me in WT.

[SdKfz173DW-live]

@Stona_WT

You can now join Enduring Confrontation in any ship with BR 3.3 or higher. Just pick your favorite ship and play.

Will we be able to bring 3.0 and lower BR boats? My favorite ship is the VS-8 at 2.3

[MJPIA]

@Stona_WT

In the next major update, Naval Enduring Confrontation will become a permanent sub-mode — you’ll be able to switch to it directly below the “To Battle” button. Choose “Classic mode”, “Enduring Confrontation”, or queue for both at once - in which case you’ll be placed in a shared queue and matched into whichever battle becomes available first.

Will the mode let players do daily tasks and grind for events in it?

And will there be any changes in normal rewards/how poorly rewarded playing objectives are?

I’m one of the players that came back to try it out of curiosity for the first time in years and after spending 45 minutes in it I don’t see a point in coming back

There are many bot objectives you need to kill to bleed the enemy’s tickets, carriers for example, those have player damage models, are ridiculously tanky (as a CV should be against destroyer guns) and they can shrug off literal hundreds of HE hits without a care

That first Shokaku took 3 long lances across the ship to sink with the second Shokaku eating 2 to bring down as well
The amount of time and effort to sail across the map to get close enough to the AI cargo fleets and the CV’s while dodging enemy fire is in no way worth the amount of rewards recieved compared to just brawling with the enemy players and bots spawning in their caps much closer to you

Much like the normal encounter matches there’s just no incentive to play the objectives and sink the AI fleet rather than just trading blows with the players and AI ships

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

To me, the most problematic targets are Cargo Ships. They appear to be hollow, you can hit them 300-400 times and they won’t go down, their hulls are indestructible, crew rarely ever goes below 50%, they are imprevious to breeches and flooding.

CVs are fine though.