The Modern Warships 2nd anniversary event ran from May 11th to 22nd. The event structure is much more involved compared to the first anniversary, which basically amounted to giving out promo codes so people could redeem some rare and desirable items such as the TMF-155.
However, the first anniversary did not go without a hitch. In case you didn’t know, some hackers managed to leak the codes in advance. This led to some people getting banned when they were trying to enter the leaked codes. Also, the servers could not handle the load and because of this, some people could not access the game at all.
Despite the initial setbacks, in the end, all went well: people got unbanned and the developers distributed some codes so everyone could get goodies.
The second anniversary follows the same model as the Easter Egg Hunt event. There is a time-limited “Battle Pass” during the event. By collecting event currency called hats, you can advance in the Pass and collect valuable rewards.
Most of the rewards are not that special like gold or upgrade points, but as a final reward, you can get the V-280 Valor helicopter for free. This is one of the best helicopters in the game because it can attack surface, air, and underwater targets. It’s a much better reward compared to AH-1Z Viper which was the final reward in the Easter event.
Like in the last event, as you progress through the event, you can get a discount on the new USS New Hampshire (BB-1011) battleship. The only way you can obtain this ship right now is real money.
And the ship initially costs a whopping 100 EUR/USD, but by progressing in the event you can bring it down to 90 EUR/USD, then 70 EUR/USD, and finally 45 EUR/USD, which is much more reasonable. The final other valuable reward in the Event Pass is another event currency called bats, more on this later.
First, a few words about New Hampshire. This new battleship is like a grown-up version of USS Constitution II (DDR-2000), both in appearance and in performance. As a matter of fact, the original 3d model of this ship was made by the same person who designed USS Constitution II (DDR-2000) and USS Massachusetts (BB-1012). If you want a clue about the next Battle Pass or Artcoin ship, check his DeviantArt gallery for likely candidates 😉
Like the Constitution, what sets New Hampshire apart from other ships, is its very powerful railguns. A well-placed shot can take off a significant chunk of an enemy ship’s health. Railgun projectiles are also very fast and accurate, therefore hard to avoid. However, the guns have a fairly long reload time. In addition to guns, the ship has grenade launchers for defending against submarines and torpedoes and four autocannons. The ship also has many different air defense systems. In addition to two free AA slots, the battleship features unique locked THAAD and RIM-116C systems.
The only thing that is not so good about the ship is the helicopters. While there are two of them, the slots are locked. The only helicopter you can use on the ship is the goofy Cougar drone. This helicopter looks like a cheap DJI drone and in addition to having very low health, it is also slow and has anemic firepower. The only thing it’s good for is spotting and you can’t change it to a better one.
The New Hampshire is definitely not a bad ship but as of today, it’s only available for real money during the event. We will have to see if the developers will announce a re-run of this ship at some point in the future or put it on sale in the Artcoin Market.
As previously mentioned, the only way to progress through the event is by collecting the event currency, hats. You can get these hats by playing the game. Because the first 10 matches each day give you an 8X bonus, it’s easy to get around 400 hats per offline game for the first matches and even more if you play online. There’s also a 20% extra bonus which depends on what ship type you are playing. However, after the first few matches, you can only get around 40 hats which makes grinding hats very tedious.
It’s also possible to obtain a large amount of hats for free every day. You can claim 300 hats for free and get an additional 500 by watching an ad. It’s also possible to spend 300 gold for 1000 hats which is a good proposition for people who have collected a lot of gold. However, all these options can be used only once per 24 hours. In the previous event, it was possible to buy the event currency using gold as many times as you like. This is no longer possible because there is a cooldown.
In the Easter event, if you had big gold reserves, you could decide to grind the event normally, and then at the end of the event, use gold to buy the rest of the event currency you need. This time if you decide to spend gold only on the last day, you will get a rude awakening: if you didn’t spend gold from the start, you can only buy one pack of hats for gold for the entire event. This time you will need to spend real money to buy another type of event currency called bats which can be exchanged for hats using a gacha system. This makes the event far less F2P-friendly.
Let’s talk about the gatcha. This system works using the other type of event currency: bats. You use a bat to roll the gacha which can give you gold, hats, or more bats. There are also some other drops like Swordship, BrahMos-II, Excalibur Laser, or an Artstorm camouflage but these rewards are exceedingly rare.
It’s a good addition that the developers have added a pity system which allows you a certain chance to get the Swordship after 200 rolls. But I’m not sure if the Swordship is such a desirable item that people want to spend that much money on it. And you can buy it in the Artcoin Market anyway. About the bats, you do get some bats by progressing in the event but if you want a large amount of them, you need to spend real money.
I’m generally not a big fan of this system with multiple event currencies you need to exchange for other event currencies. I think one event currency would be enough. We already have dollars, gold, and Artcoins in the game so adding more and more currencies just makes things more confusing.
I think the rewards in the event are way better than the previous one, especially the Valor is a great heli as a free reward. But the problem is that the event mechanics are way more complicated compared to the previous one with multiple different currencies. An even bigger problem is that it’s much harder to collect the event currency compared to the previous event. Even if you play a lot, it’s very hard to get to the last level of the event pass and collect your free reward.
The devs must have realized this by looking at telemetry or other player feedback and decided to extend the event by four extra days. This was a good decision since it allowed more players to successfully complete the event. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have paid boosters or packs to speed up the process if you don’t have that much time to spend on an event. However, I think it should be possible complete the event without spending real money if you spend a medium-to-large amount of time on grinding.
I hope the developers take this feedback into account in future events! With that said, I think the event was far more interesting compared to the previous anniversary event. I don’t think there’s anything more I want to add, other than I wish happy 2nd birthday to Modern Warships!
