As the game continues to push more and more contents and changes, expect many quality of life changes to come that will make the game more enjoyable and less frustrating. Many have changes past three years, and new players now will benefit from them more, compared to those who joined the game during its early days.
- Danger level: It's a system that lowers damage taken with successive runs in a cleared world. It also makes your quest for farming shipgirls much easier in the future after clearing said stage, such as Jintsuu in World 10-4. With hard mode stages, lowering it to 0/Green and 3 starring a level allows you to just fight the boss (making farming boss only drops easier to a degree). However, expect future events to be initially harder, so it is zig-zagging here.
- Level difference between your ships and the enemy. Of course, your ships grow stronger and more powerful with each level, but that's not all. The higher level you are compared to enemy, the more damage you deal to them, and less damage taken from them, capping at 50% (which means the level difference is at least 25, as each level grants 2% more damage deal and 2% less damage taken). The only exceptions to this are the second half of chapter 14note , the entirety of chapter 15note , and level 15 of META showdownsnote which put you in a slight level disadvantage (your ship maximum level as of January 18th, 2024 is 125). But then when coupling with Danger level, which acts as level difference bonus (each Danger meter cleared grants you 1 level difference), would make things much easier. It's the reason why it is recommended to limit break your ships as soon as possible (unless you can manage an acceptable level difference when running 0LB fleet for cheap farming).
- A plurality of ships can be obtained in different ways instead of just spending Wisdom Cubes and Coins on the build menu and gambling in the gacha, which really helps make every ship collectible for the average player.
- Many are available as quest reward drops, even up to the highest rarity and including some of the strongest in the game; as boss fights guarantee a ship drop when beaten with an S ranking, even casual story progression nets numerous ships.
- During major story events, the signature Super Rare of the event can typically be farmed as a drop from the final mission of the story as an alternative to completing point-based goals.
- There are only a small number of non-event-related girls who never drop from quests, and even these have ways of being acquired that don't necessarily rely on the gacha (for example, girls like Enterprise and Warspite rotate through the Medal of Honor shop, and you can farm for ships to convert into MoHs if you really want to go for it).
- The Guild shop allows you to get a copy of certain ships for a modest amount of guild coins. Certain ships (mainly those from event tasks or drop only) from events will be added to the core shop if you would rather just skip the grind.
- The Research mechanic features incredibly powerful ships that can only be obtained by actually playing the game, either by reaching a certain amount of tech points for one (or two) specific faction or obtaining a certain number of vanguard / main fleet ships from a specific faction.
- In addition to adding Ultra Rare ships to standard pools, the January 18th, 2024 update introduced UR exchange, where players can get UR exchange points by building ships in standard pools or event pools without an obtainable UR shipgirl. Accumulating enough points allows the player to obtain any of the permanently available Ultra Rare ship.
- Many are available as quest reward drops, even up to the highest rarity and including some of the strongest in the game; as boss fights guarantee a ship drop when beaten with an S ranking, even casual story progression nets numerous ships.
- If a ship is sunk during battle, you can quit the current battle before it ends and your fleet's health will be back to the point before said battle, at the cost of spent oil.
- A ship sinking won't deduct affection points, but rather morale (which will recover with time), allowing for some leeway in building up a ship's affections.
- Also, you have one free chance per day to fully restore a sunk ship to full health after a battle. The subsequent emergency repairs are available via gems. Repair ships have skills that add to this.
- Moving over a defeated enemy fleet's "carcass" will not trigger an ambush or airstrike from the enemy. However, this mercy doesn't apply to ambush fleets themselves, which do not leave a carcass to hide in. The elite fleets during events also do not leave anything behind, but that is hardly a concern as there are no ambushes at all in modern events.
- Some maps feature ammo replenishment point, in which you can resupply up to three ammo to have some advantage over enemy fleet (you deal more damage to the enemy when ammo is full).
- When refilling the dorm's supplies, the game will warn you if there isn't enough room for current supply item, so you won't waste a more expensive supply item.
- If your oil supply is full, you cannot collect oil from the Cantina. However, you can still collect oil from missions and commissions, so it will not go to waste. This oil storage, however, has a hard upper limit.
- The game warns you that the auto-battle AI is stupid with a humorous image.
- The warnings for both overfilling dorm supplies and the auto battle AI can be turned off.
- KanColle veterans rejoiced on discovering that map composition requirements are explicitly spelled out, there is no RNG in where your ships move on the map, and there is no system of "locking" your ships to an event map.
- The Ashen Simulacrum event introduced a new features called "Fast Forward", which greatly accelerates the movement speed of your fleet in the campaign interface, regardless of whether you cleared the map or not. Sadly, this feature isn't available after that event.
- The second batch of Priority/Decisive ships. Players often complained that the requirement for grinding EXP for PR1 ships was so strict (only allow ships of same type to take part in), for example, Roon's grind ONLY allows Ironblood cruisers (both light and heavy) to take part in, and back then, the Ironblood cruisers outside of events weren't very good, aside from rare gem like Leipzig, thus leading to very long and frustrating journey. In second batch, grinding ship allows all same supertype (either vanguard or backline) ships to take part in (for example, Seattle's grind allows all Eagle Union vanguard ships to take part in). Aside from some fleet tech point requirement, grinding for PR2 ships wasn't as tedious as before, even for super Game-Breaker ships like Azuma or FdG. And with the release of the PR3 came with some adjustments to make getting the PR1 easier, with making their ship class requirements the same as the rest, a "catch up where you can get bonus strengening units for a choosen PR1 ship, and quests to get exp packs used to fill in the Experience requirements. With later run events, there were periods where you get bonus strengthening units of a [PR1] ship.
- PR4 Came with more adjustments to PR1 where if you have no strengtening units for a ship, you can spend gold to add them directly to the ship in question with the first 15 a day at a decreasing discount (the first two are free). It also brought a set of missions that reward Exp packs usable on the first two waves of PR ships, separate catch ups for all PR2 gold ships, Azuma, and Fredrich respectively.
- The ability to convert strengthening units of a Development level 30 Prototype ships to proto cores (which can be converted to universal strengthening units or an item that converts to a blue print of research exclusive weapons). This gives an use to excess ones, though it's recommended to take the ships in question to Fate simulation 5 first.
- The Universal Bulin and Prototype Bulin Mk.II can be used as Limit Break and retrofit materials in place of the ship you're actually trying to upgrade. This effectively means a lot less farming is required in order to fully upgrade Super Rare ships, since both Bulins are given as rewards for completing easy side-missions.
- When you buy a special pack in the shop and the skin you receive from the pack is one that you already own, the game will automatically refund you the gems that the skin cost.
- Clear Mode. Made its debut since Kizuna Ai collab event, this feature is truly a godsend that brings a lot of changes to lessen the grindy and frustrating process of the game: for campaign maps up to chapter 12, it completely removes ambush and airstrike, allow you to leisurely farm your map without worrying about annoying obstacles. In Hard Map mode, it allows you to directly fight the boss fleet, saving a lot of time and oil. For most event campaigns, it totally removes the movement restriction applied on your fleet and stops Siren/Elite fleets from moving to block and intercept your fleet, allows you to dictate the fights on your own term. The Fleet Lock features, coupled with this mechanics, will completely remove fleet preparation before battle screen, saving you a lot of time when all you need is just farming without paying attention to your fleet composition, and can be switched off if you wish to manually manage the composition. These days it's enabled when you first 100% clear a stage, though this means the threat level will still be high the first few runs.
- There will be periods when you can obtain triple core data from hard map, greatly accelerating your core data accumulations and with it, allowing you to buy essential items from core shop like Super Heavy Shell, Type 1 Armor Piercing Shell, VF-17 (currently one of the best fighters against both surface and aerial targets) or the very expensive but powerful Oxygen Torpedo. This bonus does not happen often, but when it does, make the most of it by clearing the highest hard map you can manage.
- After an update, you can basically move your submarine fleet EVERYWHERE on the map (at a small oil cost), and if your submarine fleet is powerful enough, you can call them at anytime to aid your surface fleet during dire situation (fighting on zero ammo, encoutering tough enemy to crack) as long as the fleet you are fighting against is in your submarine attack range, and don't be surprised if one of your submarines earns her MVP. Sometimes, your cute submarines are what will decide your victory or total annihilation of your fleet. You can also set them to automatically engage enemy fleet before you fight them, letting them shave a decent chunk of enemy total HP (could be up to 20% HP) to make your fight shorter.
- Updates in early 2021 added Auto-Battle to sorties on stages you have 100% cleared. With this on, fleets will automatically move around the map and engage in combat without requiring your input. The system is rather robust. Your fleets will prioritize Siren fleets (which with the recent changes will still be as the last time you fought them) above all else before moving on to production fleets. If the boss has spawned but is blocked by other enemies, the AI will figure out how to fight its way there rather than stop and complain it can't find a path to the boss. You can even set a role for each fleet — one fleet could be for defeating the regular fleets and another strictly for the boss, or you could even make one fleet do all the combat and have the other one merely pad fleet stats. The amount of required user input this reduces when level grinding ships or farming event maps cannot be overstated. It was later added to Operation Siren, wherein the AI will even move to all non-enemy points of interest such as supply boxes and Meowfficer exploration nodes without requiring your input.
- Ultra Rare ships, in consideration of their Game-Breaker status and limited availability, institute a Pity system for their banners. Every 200 builds on the UR's banner guarantees one copy of the ship, up to four times, and any copies that drop beforehand don't reset the count. Furthermore, their level cap is independent of their Limit Break level, and UR-rarity Bullins are available as event rewards as well as in the shop in exchange for "specialized cores", which are earned from clearing levels and cap at 4000 (5000 as of the January 4th, 2024 update) a month, enough to buy one UR Bullin a month.
- The January 18th, 2024 update added two Ultra Rare ships to the standard Heavy and Special construction pools in addition to introducing the aforementioned UR exchange system, giving players easier access Ultra Rare ships.
- April 2021 introduced the ability to outright skip playing Daily Raids and get your rewards instantly, without it costing so much as one oil. The only caveat is that you must achieve an S rank in a given Raid before you can do so, but this is generally an easy task. It even extends to the Supply Disruption Raid, which has a limit of twice per week!
- Daedalian Hymn marked the first time event maps allowed for Clearing Mode and Auto-Battle as soon as you 100%-cleared the map, rather than doing that and getting a 3-star clear and reducing the Threat Level to Safe. Though the player should beware of the threat posted by Siren fleets (which the Auto-Battle AI will unquestionably target first and foremost) as well as Large fleets when the threat level has not yet been reduced. Particularly so if using a low oil cost fleet. Soon after, this was applied to regular levels.
- The September 30th 2021 patch brought a number of sizable improvements to the game:
- With the 125 cap, the experience requirement from level 100 to 120 was reduced with ships levels being automatically adjusted. If the ship in question was at 120 and had max stored experienced, the experience will take them to 125.
- While rather limited, the new uncap item, Cognitive Array had a sizable amount given in an easy mini-event on top of the new avenues introduced with the update. And you need a lower amount compared to cognitive chips.
- The Lecture Hall got overhauled going from a place to give a choosen ships experience (at the expense of morale) to a place that uses the built up experience to make experience packs that you can collect and use freely.
- Fleet Technology now has rewards for upgrading the 4 main faction levels on top of the stat boosts; Gold (partially refunding the level increase cost), and uncap mats of both kinds.
- The same update also removed the oil gained for retiring ships but increasing the coins gotten. This is rather divisive as it shut down an oil farming tactic popular in chiefly China of leveling up cheap ships just to retire them for the oil. In reaction to the outcry, Manjuu implemented a number of other changes and additions that most people could appreciate:
- A free weekly supply pack (with 4000 oil, oxycola, T3 equipment plates, and T1 Exp packs) was added soon after the Sept 30 update.
- With the next major update (Oct 14th 2021) had some more changes aimed at making running a strong fleet in Chapters 9 through 13 easier with things like oil consumption caps (If a fleet's oil cost exceeds it, the cost will be reduced to the cap), additional rewards for more oil being used.
- Said update also added some side rewards to commissions that previously yielded quick finishers (a resource that for vets is in excessive supply)
- The update also added a quick equipment swap button, enabling players to skip the warehouse screen when changing gear.
- An update expanded the equipment stat-screen to show damage modifers to armor types and what faction the equipment is made by (important for a number of ships)
- Initially, rerun events would just be treated as an entirely new event in terms of progress (you'd have to take on the entire event again and go through cutscenes, which is a considerably time consuming and boring). However, starting with the Aurora Noctis Rerun, your entire progress is carried over to the rerun. This essentially means that if you completed the event the first time, you could continue grinding for points on the hardest maps and tackle SP if you're already there.
- From the Pledge of the Radiant Court event on, the requirements to clear each of the levels are significantly shorter. While the A maps generally took 2/3 shots to beat before advancing to the next one, the B maps usually took an average of 3-4, and the Hard Mode counterparts increased those shots by one, meaning that some of the later ones would take 5 shots to beat. Now all of the A, B and C levels have it so the first and second ones take only two shots to beat, while the third map takes three shots to beat (the D levels instead are 3/3/4, nowhere near as bad as 4-6 on average). The minimum ship clearing requirement for three-starring the levels have also dropped too, meaning you only have to spend one of those attempts clearing everything, while just clearing the minimum for the subsequent attempts. This makes it easier to go to the SP Stages and just autogrind the event on Clearing Mode to farm for points. The shorter events are even quicker, as Operation Convergence has the first three levels requiring 2 attempts, and the fourth one requiring 3 attempts.
- With the introduction of Joint Operation - Winter Pathfinder, a new auto system was added for the Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty sorties. After the first completion on a difficulty, players can plan a number of sorties (Up to 15) for the game to run through on its own. While joint operation sorties are short by design, they demand attention for item farming, and this addition takes the need to be hawk-eyed away to let the player do other things during the extra time taken for the game to run through 15 sorties for you. There's no need to worry about morale either, as the run will automatically end if the next sortie would result in affection loss.
- Following the steps of the more recent major story events, this is also the first joint operation to include the oil cap mechanic on Hard and EX difficulty, allowing farming to be done with larger or high-rarity fleets with less strain on oil consumption.
