Vspishka’s open letter to World of Tanks developers and WG’s response

~ Sebastianul

Something from the RU community, which I should have posted 2 months ago (sorry). We got a new Russian translator named Alex, he won’t be very active for now but expect some historical articles translated soon.

„„Aiming with a “mouse” is the main function of any shooter. People like shooters because there your skill and accuracy matters. An aim hack is considered cheating and is frowned upon in the gaming community.

World of Tanks originally employed the “aiming circle” and “dispersion” +-25% because classic shooter aiming wouldn’t work for tanks because they’re too slow and often you have to “hunt pixels” to hit the target. Autoaim was initially intended to handle server bugs and lags. It was needed, but nowadays bugs and teleporting tanks are gone, but the autoaim remains. It was tweaked a bit since then, but it’s still the same no brainer if your gun has more penetration than your target has armor. And of course there are many aim hacks based around the autoaim mechanic.

Just because of those cheats autoaim should be removed from the game, but it’s not happening. WG is afraid that people who have problems controlling their tank (and we see them a lot) will stop playing and stop paying.

Any kind of aim assist turns an interesting game into a child’s play and those “children” will gladly use cheats. Many seasoned gamers are past that stage, but adult tankers never had anything like that so they’re “having fun” with cheats. They’re not afraid of bans, they’ll just buy another account and will keep playing and “have fun”.

Introduction of new “aim assist” for wheeled vehicles will have some ADMITTED consequences. Opening the game for more forbidden mods will bring the game to the path of total degradation from the point of view of a normal player (who’s still playing and likes the game). These players will suffer and eventually they will be faced with a choice: use cheats or keep getting beat up. A fair player won’t be able to stand that for too long and will leave.

With my actions I want to bring this fact to the attention of WG team. This direction you’re heading into may be harmful for your player base.

Notice the many comments under your videos and on the forum. You’re not gods. You can make mistakes. You almost made a mistake and players don’t really want your new wheeled machines with cool new features you’re very excited about. Please, listen to me.

P.S. After a while even those who love these new wheeled vehicles will start to get mad at you. Stop until it’s too late.”

WG’s official response given to Vshpiska directly by Anton Pankov (outdated).

Can be seen in this video:

„Hi everybody.

After our latest Developer Diaries there are a lot of questions about wheeled vehicles. We read them all and we can comment on them:

At this moment wheeled vehicles are in the early testing stage. We admittedly overhyped them in our developer diaries. We made it look like everything is done and ready for release. It’s not.

The decision on releasing or not releasing them is not made yet, we have planned several testing stages which have yet to happen. In the update 1.3 we will bring a tier 8 wheeled light tank to live servers. It will be available to supertesters and special players who are not yet selected.

We will carefully gather test data and player opinions. If tests will show that these machines affect the game in a negative way we are willing to drastically change the characteristics of these tanks: gun stats, top speed, dynamics and even new features like the aim assist and the “charge” ability.

And only after that we’ll bring them to common test and see if the wheeled vehicles are ready for release or not.

Thank you for your attention to this subject. We hear you.”

29 thoughts on “Vspishka’s open letter to World of Tanks developers and WG’s response”

  2. “We admittedly overhyped them in our developer diaries”

    I remember saying this translation in a slightly different form that changes the meaning of it all. I’ve read (I think it was the forum, but I’m not sure) it more like “We gave the false impression of them being almost ready for release, but they’re not.” This changes the meaning of the whole paragraph to “We’re sorry we gave you a false impression”, rather than what we understand here: “We overhyped you on purpose”.

  3. The game isn’t the game that I remember when I started playing.
    World of —Tanks—
    More like World of WW2 Vehicles.
    Those “wheeled tanks” aren’t tanks,they are armored vehicles!
    From this point,in the game there aren’t tanks only,so the name doesn’t make any sense.

    2. It’s actually good to see it branch out some more. They just have to learn to keep everything working properly. Let’s hope they do.

  4. Auto-aim or not… I like the tactical aspect of positioning your tank more than the fast reflex 3D-shooter this idiot claims is the best. I would love for all RoF to be reduced with 20-25% which would give players more freedom of movement and more focus on hitting and penetrating than just DPM’ing the enemies… The real problem with wheeled vehicles is not the auto-aim but the speed-based gameplay which the current aiming system is not capable of dealing with (crosshair jumping on a ridge line flickering between a 200m shot and a 2-3km shot)

  5. He guy mostly complains about “new autoaim mechanic = more opportunities to cheat”. I dunno if I agree with him on that one. And I definitely don’t agree that autoaim should be removed completely, a lot of people are still playing on potato PCs and with crappy internet, autoaim really helps.

      1. What’s the problem with the current servers? I barely have any issues while on playing EU1 or EU2.

          1. The US region is on the back burner. I’m amazed they haven’t shut it off completely yet and moved the players over to SEA and EU.

              1. I get a 14 ping to the server(s)… not my fault people are to cheap to get away from their 9600 BAUD connection 😛

  6. There was a video QB uploaded showing a Tiger I/HT VI tanker acquiring 15 kills.

    This was done, in parts, by using the auto-aim feature. Something available for all players. And he explained this. That it was not a cheat function but rather something the game itself has. Audible cues from the game client make it quite easy to tell that.

    Still, even after watching and hearing this, some viewers and forum users believed it was an automatic aiming program.

    I mean… the loading screen tips aren’t there for show: “Auto-aim does not guarantee 100% accuracy. Experienced players use manual aim instead”.

    The word “skill” has turned much into a buzz word, spoken by those who which to sound better, smarter or any combination thereof. Same as artillery, corridor-style maps, HT meta…

    Running the risk of sounding like WG themselves, this is not a game hack. It’s a built-in feature. Not to mention you won’t know whether the enemy is auto-aiming at you or not… rendering such a complaint a moot point.

    But… I don’t expect my point of view to have any influence to WG, much less to this community.

    One that is among the least annoying, honestly. Thomas Nielsen here has exemplified something far more annoying. Ballistics in WoT ought to improve.

  8. For a perspective of someone who makes cheats:
    1. Aimbot is also affected by aim RNG and penetration mechanics.
    2. NO AIMBOT in the world can aim better that a seasoned player.
    3. The only reason people bitch about aimbot’s and autoaim are: A. they are dumb as shit and don’t understand basic game mechanics and game play. B. They have no idea how mods work and have this notion it’s like CS, you can shoot thru walls and every shot is a head shot.

    Just to be clear, if you are good at this game, modding will make you a little bit better. No mod can create a unicum from a brain dead 400wn8 zombie. New autoaim has ZERO impact on WoT game play. What did change is the speed, light tanks cannot spot now from the same first line positions so easy now. Period.
    One more click bait by Vspishka.
    Why are there no WG sponsored youtubers bitching about RNG and MM ? Or power creep ? Or gold ammo ? Yea, not getting payed to ask the right questions…

    I would like to ask Alex to translate some of GrimOptimist videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPDZwcUY4MP6J7X8ZRirCPQ

    1. Aimbots still give an unfair advantage to the players who use them over the players that dont and that is the problem.

      1. Free gold, free tanks for their streams.
        Invitations for most wg game events.
        CC program.
        Yea, they do it for free.
        Plus WG copy strikes.

        1. Being a CC is pretty much a job that YOU’RE NOT GETTING PAID FOR. Yeah, sure, CCs get free stuff for WG, but it’s just in-game stuff, it’s nothing. Free PR for WG, that’s it. Look at Skill4ltu for example. WG even rents him tanks he don’t have so he can get marks on them. And Skill always brings up controversional questions to his audience’s attention and he says that CCs can’t do shit about it, WG don’t listen to them most of the time. And what copystrikes are you talking about?

          1. Well, the copystrikes are the ones that SirFoch faced when he lost his CC status for calling out the bullshit with the recent prem tanks. Especially the Chrysler K and the Defender.

            The loss of SirFoch CC status made Jingles leave as a CC for World of Tanks.

            1. Foch issue was an initiative of Ph3lan personally, that guy is a noteworthy asshat. WG people said that they will never abuse copystrike system and I believe them, they are not completely retarded. Also on the other note, Foch 100% deserved what he got and Jingles can go fuck himself, honestly.

    3. Yes, truly your average human player has no issue aiming a weakspot on a tank moving in 3 different axis from the PoV of a tank itself moving in 3 different axis, unlike an automated system which obviously struggles.

      /s

  9. I’d like for people to open their eyes for a moment, and notice how this “hack” autoaim of the armored cars has yet to do anything to the game, and will most likely keep doing nothing. Perhaps my understanding of the matter is limited as I’m only a lime green apprentice and not a purple lord of the lands, but playing the armored cars taught me that this “improved” autoaim is of no real benefit when RNG can screw you up regardless. In fact, the armored cars as a concept are one huge ball of hype that should deflate as soon as possible, because while driving them can be hella fun, the performance is no better than regular light tanks.

    tl;dr – uniturds will get monster games, everyone else will get their miracle carry amids a sea of bad-mediocre-decent ones, and life goes on.

  10. imho, WOT is the only shooter game that is not directly affected by auto-aim due to a lot of factors. Armor, RNG, at player skills. etc…

    As a PUBG player, damn aimbotters are frustrating to deal with on games like CSGO and PUBG. unlike to WOT that they still have to aim softspots and have ammo mechanics.

  11. The autoaim feature is necessary in some aspects. In a real tank, you have multiple crew operating the different parts. As a gamer you have to control both aiming and driving. If you have to focus on driving you can’t aim behind you. That’s where auto-aim comes in: you kind of give the reigns of aiming to your gunner. As long as the autoaim is not more sofisticated than just aiming in the middle of the tank, there’s nothing wrong with it.

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