World of Tanks added a new interesting article about the future ahead to the main page. You can read the full article here, I picked out the most interesting future changes.
Matchmaker Improvements
Over the past year, we’ve been working hard to address your feedback on the matchmaker and fix well-known issues, including, for instance, getting ranked in the top/middle/bottom of the list an uneven number of times. We won’t just be tweaking matching—we’ll be overhauling its very core and the template system, so that it fits better with the game as it is today.
The improved matchmaker design will balance teams according to a number of templates (e.g., 3/5/7: three vehicles at the top of the list, five in the middle, and seven at the bottom). And one important factor comes to the forefront here: with a vehicle roster as diverse as that in World of Tanks, you are free to choose any tank in your Garage. We wouldn’t want to limit your choice. Therefore, the variety of vehicles waiting to get in a battle is different in prime time and periods when fewer players are online. To prevent excruciatingly long queues, the matchmaker may sometimes create two-tier or even single-tier battles.
- No Platoons with vehicles that are more than three tiers apart:The improved matchmaker simply won’t let players create them. The system of XP Bonuses & Penalties will be updated accordingly: there will be no penalties because creating a +/-3 Platoon will be technically impossible.
- Fewer easy wins and quick losses (these are usually caused by the uneven distribution of vehicle types between teams): In the future, the matchmaker will spread vehicles types across two teams more evenly.
EXAMPLE: The current system might balance two teams with five TDs against six heavy tanks. The enhanced system spreads vehicles across the teams so that both have TDs and heavy tanks. Though this doesn’t necessarily mean there’ll always be equal numbers of identical classes (e.g., a team with three TDs/two heavy tanks against a team with three TDs and three heavy tanks).
- Artillery: The improvement will limit these to a maximum of three per team.
- Light tanks: To ensure the new system works, we’ll be stretching light tank branches to Tier X. The addition of tier IX–X vehicles will let the matchmaker assemble diverse teams, and faster. As for gameplay, this could kill two birds with one stone: light tanks gain power and get a chance to contribute meaningfully. The combination of decent view range, compact size, great speed and solid firepower (with guns being just a little less powerful than those of medium tanks) will transform them into small and swift predators. When positioned well, they will pose a threat to the enemy.
Sandbox Server: Second Iteration
Global rebalancing is hard to implement and get right, but we are committed to moving forward on this front. This past summer, players and developers tested a few different balance setups on the special Sandbox server. We can’t thank you enough for answering the call and helping us with feedback and suggestions!
The second Sandbox kicks off in 2017. Unlike the first, which featured massive changes to vehicle roles, and more, stage two will be divided into two phases, each introducing selective changes for you to test. This time, we’ll continue fine-tuning features that showed good results during summer testing.
PHASE 1 AGENDA:
Changes to accuracy, penetration loss over distance, and the revised overmatch/ricochet rule that was first revealed during the 9.17 Common Test.
Currently, the penetration stats and great accuracy of top-tier TDs and medium tanks allow them to hit and penetrate well-armored frontal projection, even at long range. We’ll be tweaking their penetration stats and penetration loss over distance mechanic, as well as accuracy stats for all other tanks, to raise the role of armor and make it more fun to play heavily-armored vehicles.
PHASE 2 AGENDA:
Changes to artillery; new consumables that could be used several times per battle.
For artillery, we’ll continue testing the “stun/shellshock” feature. We improved it a lot since the first Sandbox, so it’s different from what some of you saw this summer. Also on the docket in this phase are aiming improvements, including the introduction of an alternative aim similar to Battle Assistant. The UI will undergo a few improvements as well and will provide you with important information about the stun: duration, radius, etc.
Have a nice day 🙂
