WoT: Steel Hunter AMA with Game Designer Daniil Shek

A member of the Steel Hunter Development team, Game Designer Daniil Shek, will be answering some questions about the mode.

Q1. Will Steel Hunter be available as a permanent mode with or without upgrades and changes to the mode?

A1. We are currently working towards this question. We have few ideas about the mode’s future, and currently we are collecting all the data to make decisions. So it’s a mystery even to us 🙂

Q2. How is the loot distributed on the maps?

A2. That’s a pretty simple one, anywhere you can drive your tank loot can be spawned. The system tries to distribute the loot randomly between those places every wave of loot spawns.

Q3. Why do all SH tanks start very slow and sluggish unlike tanks in Random mode that can be researched and upgraded with modules? Makes the start of the mode very slow.

A3. It depends on its class. The light and medium based tanks do not feel slow at the beginning of the battle. We are balancing tanks not as vehicle which stay the same from the beginning to the end, as every game has its own phase. Some of them are powerful at the beginning in one way but have a disadvantage in others, so its a trade-off for some classes. And one more thing to mention, it also helps ensure all players get an opportunity to get involved in the battle.

Q4. When will Raven be balanced? Tank is the strongest in the SH meta now

A4. As a follow-up to the previous question where we mentioned the different phases of the battle, we monitor the stats over all of these phases. This has so far confirmed the Raven’s design and uniqueness in that it stays sustainable in all phases of the battle. If you look at statistics, it’s a flat line from the beginning to the end by its chances of winning.

Q5. Are we planning to add a Rank system and more rewards to Steel Hunter instead of just a temporary mode to change from Random battles?

A5. As we said, we are now currently working on the future of the mode to decide what we will do next. But let us evaluate what we have done so far for this launch. We didn’t want to force you to play our event for its fancy rewards, but instead, we want to give you an alternative way to play our great game! One of the ways we did this by trying to make it closer to Random battles in terms of economics, where there is not that much of a special reward economy as we have known it previously.

Q6. Are we planning to return the main rewards to the mode like the first iteration instead of linking it to the Battle Pass?

A6. As we mentioned above, we are trying to avoid forcing people to play the mode and making it so people only play it because they enjoy it.

Q7. Do we have any plans to add variations to Steel Hunter mode like the removed mode Rampage?

A7. We are currently collecting data and feedback from the community, to figure out what we can do next. So your question will be used as evidence that the community wants something like that 🙂

Q8. Are we planning to make a ranked mode and SH tournament for players to participate in?

A8. Currently, there are a few tournaments we set up from time to time. Even now, at tankfest, you can see this. We see players are enjoying the competitive side of the mode, so we try to work further with such types of activities

Q9. Last year of steel hunter green drop gives consumables and orange ammo, why you decide to switch colours this year?

A9. It happened because of tweaks to the loot systems. We had a few discussions, on which loot will have which items, and it seemed logical to us to put “healings” in green loot, while orange would be used for other powerful stuff.

Q10. Is it possible to add the “auto fill platoon” feature from RB battles to SH platoons? It should help form more platoons to fill up the queue.

A10. Playing in a platoon of 2 people in a highly competitive mode which requires you to communicate, making it more punishing to play with random people where communication may not come as easily isn’t ideal. But yeah, it seems logical to me to elaborate more on platoon interactions in the future.

Q11. Sometimes, if you have 0 yellow ability usages, you will keep getting repair kits only, when collecting yellow circles. Is it a bug or a feature? (Maybe skill balance ???)

A11. For this update we decided to change the “loot drops list” from loot pick-ups, to make them more predictable and useful at all stages of the battle. For example, it’s easier to predict which item will drop in yellow drops, when there are almost 2 (+ ultimate which everybody wants to get) of possible ones, then at least 3. Yeah, different items have different chances to drop and repair kits have a slightly (just a little) higher chance to drop in yellow loots, but there is no hidden mechanic, to be honest.

Q12. Why did you decide to remove the red triangle on varyag mines?

A12. Well, Varyag never had triangles on the mines for enemies. Mines shouldn’t be detected that easily, that is what mines were designed for 🙂

Q13. You use k-means centroid algorithm for the location of blue airdrops or its random?

A13. For this launch, we decided to change the airdrop spawn algorithm, so it creates more spots of interest during the battle in different places of the map. You mentioned k-means centroid algorithm, which looks similar, but is much easier on calculations. We made a few additions to this algorithm, for it not to be so easy to predict other players’ locations.