Part 1 here. Source: Portals
Blueprints
Blueprints are a popular new feature and very many players are using them. However, there are still issues that need to be resolved. For example, if a tree of some nation is already researched but you still have national blueprint fragments, you can’t do anything with them. This is one of the problems that we are working on, and we are thinking how to solve it in a way that benefits everyone. In any case, blueprints will continue to develop.
Special Shells
Currently, special shells have an ultimate advantage. There are whole subtypes of vehicles with good dynamics and gun handling that benefit the most from Premium shells. However, these shells make well-armored vehicles with supposedly good survivability suffer, which in turn means that the impact of those well-armored vehicles in battle is reduced. Currently, our main goal is to give these vehicles more weight in battle and help them to play a more important role thanks to their survivability.
On the Sandbox server, we tried decreasing the DPM of special shells, and it was received well if we separate this particular change from the rest of the New Balance changes. We still have a lot to do related to shells—for example, we still need to work on HE shells but haven’t made a final decision on increasing the base damage for standard shells yet. So, we are looking at the shell rework as a whole in order to come to a more systematic solution.
Also, we don’t intend to reintroduce purchasing special shells for gold, because we want every player to have equal conditions.
More About HE Shells
The way we wanted to rework HE shells didn’t quite work out. We want to make this shell type more predictable and understandable. Players must understand how much damage they deal or receive if a shell penetrates and if it doesn’t. If a shell penetrates, the logic must be close to the armor-piercing shells, and we are moving in this direction.
Artillery
We will not remove stun from allies, but we will check the settings of the stun system. Stun as a mechanic will not disappear. We can’t go back to armor-piercing shells like it used to be in the good old days. There will be no Premium arty, but we will continue working on SPGs.
What to Expect on Sandbox
- We will implement a new entity—the Unit. It will comprise four crews. Each Commander can be trained to a particular vehicle. All crews within a Unit are united by nation and vehicle type (for example, medium tanks of the U.S.S.R.). Units have levels which determine how many perks the Unit’s Commanders can learn. Each Commander can have their own set of Perks/Skills. In fact, a crew can be assigned to four vehicles (+all Premium vehicles belonging to the same nation and type).
- There will be so-called Special Crews—these are counsellors who will strengthen the Commanders.
- The perk system will be significantly reworked to include more perks, which will each have a level. Perks will be divided into five branches (by analogy with crew members), with each branch ending with two ultimate perks to choose from. To learn them, a player will have to work hard on the branch.
- This system will be “integrated” in a Commander, who basically represents an entire crew.
We will test the system on Sandbox. Some of the new perks will resemble the old ones, and situational perks will be added which will reflect the player’s behavior (e.g. a perk that speeds up reloading when the vehicle durability is low). A total of 35 perks are planned, 10 of which are ultimate.
The main rule: a crew makes the gameplay more enjoyable but does not provide a considerable advantage. Diversity will increase, and stronger perks will be used situationally.
Equipment 2.0
We want to diversify the usage of Equipment and move away from identical standard setups. We want to add new types of Equipment that influence new characteristics that were never affected before. We also want to simplify the system of Equipment types and their prices.
Currently, we think that vehicles will have slots for certain Equipment types. For example, one for gun handling, another for concealment or defensive equipment. This should lead to each role and vehicle type having certain bonuses that you will be able to apply to them which will help make their roles and play styles more prominent.
Equipment slot properties will be based on roles. There will be no restrictions for setups but some equipment will be available only to certain types of vehicles. There will be no penalties, only improvements. The bonuses will not be too strong—we want you to look for the right combination of equipment for your playstyle in a certain vehicle.
All this will be tested on the Sandbox server.
Ranked Battles 2020-2021
Right now, we do not have a unanimous opinion on this issue. One of the possible solutions is to use the matchmaker for this purpose, but that is also debatable. Any new rule in the matchmaker extends the queue time. At the same time, players of Ranked Battles are already limited by the number of players, servers, and Prime time. Many players are not willing to wait 5 minutes or even longer for a battle.
For the time being, the developers and players need to come to a consensus on this issue. So far, everything is under discussion.
Vehicle Rebalancing
Other
Battle Formats. Do you plan to return the removed battle formats or implement the ones that are used in events like Team Clash?
The 7/54 format was removed permanently and will not return. Team Clash showed us that players actually enjoyed the 7/70 format, so we want to launch it once more but without binding it to any specific game event. We want to see how players perceive the gameplay itself, whether they enjoy everything. If all goes well, we will consider the options for its use, the rewards and other things. Only then, after implementing the improvements, we will launch it, if needed.
The 7/70 format will not be the new eSports but rather WoT-sports for amateurs.
Game Events Overlapping Each Other
Recent DDoS attacks seriously affected the schedule of the game events, so for the good of players, we had to move some events. The choice was simple—either cancel some of the events or overlap them. We chose the latter. It will not happen again in the future.
We are also planning new activities for clan players, in particular in Random Battles.
Bond Shop. Will the items be updated?
The items in the Bond Shop will be updated approximately once every 6 months. We will update the Shop this year and will use the start of the new Ranked Battles season as a reference.
UI Issues. How and when do you plan to fix the transparent textures that can’t be shot through and “slippery” objects?
This is a systematic issue connected with the use of third-party technology in our engine. The issues arise when different technologies are interacting—we had them before Update 1.0 but they were less frequent. We are working on the fix, but these issues also require some participation from the owners of the technologies, and it takes time.
Thank you again for your feedback! Stay tuned—as soon as new solutions are ready, we’ll definitely invite you to test them on the Sandbox server.
Okay, not bad stuff. Of course its WG time so this may be months or years out still, but the actual stuff in this article isn’t bad overall. Maybe a little vague; still curious what they have in mind for HE shells.
….. The hell wg just give back arty its ap and high damage shells and remove the stun you idiots how hard is it to listen to your player base?
Player base wants arty gone for good though.
You say this as if everyone wants that. I, for one, WAY prefer the current arty mechanics over the bullsh*t 800 dmg hits arty used to be able to do, let alone penetrating my JagdPz E 100 with HE and killing me in 1 shot. I am very happy those days are long gone and I DO NOT want arty to go back to the higher damage and AP shells.
Also, I don’t understand what people hate the stun so much. Back in the day, you would lose half your HP because you are ‘camping’. Now you would lose way less HP and the stun only takes about 15 seconds. Appearantly I’m the only one, but I WAY prefer the temporary stat decrease over the permenent loss of half my HP.
“Right now, we do not have a unanimous opinion on this issue”
The top 1k is players who play nothing bur reward tanks. Yeah there is no unanimous opinion I wonder who could not want to forbid reward tanks, I don’t know, maybe those who benefit from it are not in favor of nerfing themselves? Obviously a lot of people will be against it, those people are those who benefit from it because it’s broken.
That fits arty 100% too. Playing arty benefits the plebs, so it stays in the game. So why shouldnt something that benefits the good players stay in the game? I’d be fine removing both.
I have a solution: In the next ranked saison there should be a limit of maximum battles you can play with one tank.. lets say 15. Afterwards the tanks are blocked for 3 days. After those 3 days the tank is playable again but only for 5 or 10 games. But those “cooldowns” for tanks only count in one division. The cooldown is reset when reaching a new division (or league, for Ranked 2020/21). Meaning that you cant spam tanks anymore that efficently. In my opionion its a really bad option to remove reward tanks from Ranked.
I also would change the chevron system, because even though you fought in a push or only dealt 1K dmg, but blocked 4 K and you win, you only get 1 chevron or nothing. Same situation in a lose.
My idea would be the following, to make ranked more rewarding if you lead a push/have less dmg coz you dont have a chief etc..:
Winning Team: 3-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-0-0-0 Chevrons
Loosing Team: 2-1-1-1-1-0-0-0-0-0–1–1–1–1–1 Chevrons
Thus the progression would be much easier.
Id also change the “role-experience”:
Heavies: Put much more weight on bounce-dmg and damage dealt in close combat
Also, heavies should be divided into:
Brawler:bounce, close combat, damage on various tanks (chief, 279, sc, 60tp)
Flanker: less bounce, high damage on one tank (50B, t57)
Medium-hts: mediocre bounce, high damage on various tanks (260, 277)
The role experiene should be variable. If you manage to bounce a lot in your 50B, you should get the brawler experience (as an example).
Mediums: differ between flanker (140, 30B), sniper (prog, leo, m60, m48), brawler (430U) and scout (bc) mediums
The role experience for mediums should be variable.. if you manage to bounce a lot of shots in your M48, you should get the brawler-role-experiene (for example).
Lights: Wheelies should get more exp for active spotting (spot dmg while driving more than 70 kph) than by sitting in a bush. The other lights get their role exp for passive spotting (less then 40 kph).
Artys and TDs are fine in my opinion.. also, noone plays them in Ranked..
No-one playes arties in ranked? Why do I only get 2 arty games then?
Idk, but if they remove BIA and reduce tank performance i will be very pissed off. Idk what’s wrong with crews. People can’t turn brain on for a minute to read?
Or they should add proper tutorials and description of skills, perks and equipment, and fkin add soft stats in the game. -_-
“difficulty” isn’t the problem with the crew system right now. The problem is the way that basic crew configurations change from one vehicle to another, even in the same line. It makes transitioning crews up a tier a nightmare in some cases, it sometimes leaves vehicles with no viable premium crew trainers, and it renders some premium tanks worthless as crew trainers because they themselves have a weird crew layout.
Also it produced weird problems of tanks with small crews being gimped by only being able to select a smaller number of perks and skills at a time than larger crews.
Cant wait for the meta to shift away from gold shells. They are no longer removing HE pen? nice.
Meta to shift away from prem shells would mean adding weakspots that 2 tiers lower tanks can pen with regular rounds. Lets see Type 5 have weakspots that T44 can pen frontally. Prem shells are the meta as long as that is not possible.
i LITERALLY posted suggestions how to solve it (aka exchange rates into other BPs)
NICE they finally ‘work’ (aka steal/take my ideas and sell them to be their own)
must be nice working at their office….
Doing nothing until players tell them how to solve issues which they easily could have prevented if they thought the idea trough in the first place. Not like BPs are new or the concept particular hard.
eesh~ i would so freaking own this place (i mean, already do)… with 0 effort put into it.
Then why don’t you work there instead of bitching?
Ahem…I’m sorry, who are you?
GET RID OF FKIN P2W !
More pen, less damage for premium shells.
More pen, bigger reload time for premium shells.
Very simple solutions, but too complicated for WG.
Arty limitations are very easy, never more than 2, always bottom level of the team.
Nerfing premium shells does not solve anything. The issue with premium ammo is not that it’s “simply better” that’s also a problem but one that’s easily fixed by your proposal. The real issue with gold ammo is that it negates armor. Some tanks have armor that cannot be penetrated by anything but as soon as the ennemy loads gold they’re just a piñata. And nerfing damage/reload for gold won’t solve that, it’ll still be the ammo that cancels the need to aim for weakspot or flank. Actually nerfing other stats will make it even worse because tanks with armor models so broken they can’t be beaten without gold (279e) will become even more overpowered and players who can’t afford much gold because they’re free2play will be less effective against those, making the game more pay2win than it already is.
The only way to fix the gold ammo issue is either removing it or putting a limit on how much you can carry (meaning you can’t spam it, you need to pick your targets right), and even that could be an issue as tanks with low ammo capacity would be at a disadvantage.
I completely agree that tanks should have weak spots for which players should look for and aim at.
Using premium ammo should have drawbacks that make the player think if it should be used.
Current games are filled with idiots that just spam premium ammo, no thinking, no aiming.
My opinion is that premium shells should absolutely have less DPM than regular shells.
mostly agree but not completely
im a F2P player and i DO NOT SHOOT ANY P2W ammo currently. Why? Because its fkin p2w and broken and disgusting and i CANT AFFORD IT. NONE of it !
So, with a proper change, PROPER CHANGE TO PRICES !! (NOT PREMIUM AMMO ANYMORE, just different ammo choice!) I will start to use this so i will be more effective vs armored idiotic tanks. I will be ON PAR with anyone else which anyway uses currently p2w ammo.
So not really, i wont be LESS effective, i will be MORE effective…the only ones which will be less effective are the ones who CURRENTLY uses the p2w ammo a lot. Anyone else will just gain this possibility.
But again, not without PRICES BALANCE !
Then i completely agree about weakpoints necessity and too much pen.
I think the biggest issue with stright-up nerfing premium ammo is that tier Vlll tanks kinda rely on it to be remotely competetive against tier X vehicles. If premium ammo gets nerfed, tier Vlll tanks will cry an even larger river than the already are when playing against tier X tanks. (Obj 279 (e) is so f*cking broken against tier Vlll it’s simply pathetic)
“because we want every player to have equal conditions”
PFFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, sure WG, that’s why you make premium shells and premium consumables so many times more expensive than their regular counterparts, because you want all players to have “equal conditions”. Utterly stupid developers.
how about making premium shells take up a consumable slot? have more pen, but leave your fire extinguisher or your croissants at home.
and the only arty change ever needed to solve the issue would have been to reduce them to 0-2 per team. for some (city) maps, max. 1 arty should be the ultimate limit. you need more tanks on the ground to mitigate the risk of steam roll battles, and fewer arties so that these tanks are able to maneuver.
you gotta hate WG for trying to find the most monetisable (is that a word?) workaround for even the simplest problem. in ruski economy logic, having 10.000 customers paying €100 each is better than having 1.000.000 customers who each pay €10.
profitable is the word you are looking for.
“profitable” sounds too much like trading value for money (like proper companies and businesses do), but WG would rather look for new ways to squeeze more money out of people for made up “services”, e.g. grind reliefs and credit earners.
soon, the next premium account feature might be the 0-1 arty feature 😛
Simple yet elegant idea for premium ammo – or how about an equipment slot? Just throwing it out there.
“There is an opinion that only researchable vehicles should be allowed in Ranked Battles (reward vehicles earned for activities on the Global Map and for Personal Missions should not be allowed).
Right now, we do not have a unanimous opinion on this issue.”
WTF…. Is not unanimous among the unicums and top players using Obj 279 e’s and so…..! If they ask everyone else… They get the picture. The problem is … Then those players will cry and cry and cry even more in the forums and on the background scene!
The people who will complain if they make it so that only researchable vehicles can be used in Ranked Battles, have no right to complain. With their skill level, they shoulde be able to do very well in researchable vehicles anyway (Obj 430U, S. Conqueror, Obj 268 4, STB-1). Why are they so desperately clinging to their OP-AF T95/FV4201s, Obj 907s and Obj 279 (e)s?!? They’ll probably use the effort and the grind they went through as an argument to why they should have an advantage over the casual player.