2.0 Discussion Stream with Sergey Snisarenko (Creative Director for World of Tanks)

source: WoT InfoCord

This morning, an official Q&A session was held with Sergey Snisarenko—the current Creative Director for World of Tanks—hosted by Eekeboo on the official WoT Twitch channel, as announced in yesterday’s YouTube Short.

Many topics were covered, including 2.0, matchmaker, garage/UI, vehicle balance, maps, etc, including a pleasantly-surprising number of useful answers (+ some discussion of updates to come in the short-to-mid-term future).

Without further ado, let’s get into what was discussed:

Introduction: Update 2.0 – Initial Thoughts/Numbers

Q: Now that 2.0 has been live for a couple of weeks, how do you think it’s gone? Do you think it’s met some expectations?

Yes, I think it’s even exceeded some expectations, and the overall level of happiness about 2.0 is really, really high. And we are really happy to release something that we [have been] working on for a long time—around two years. It was really nice to show what we’ve been developing for this time, to meet players at gamescom, and to make the player party.

---

Q: Can you share some of the numbers with us? How many players have been online, are we seeing a lot of new/returning players?

Yes, mostly returning players and new players; basically, 2.0 created a huge wave effect on the audience.

The audience numbers are not really secret– you can see them in the game – and what is really good that we achieved, for example, concurrent users for EU reached a record number — 287k players, an all-time record. [The previous record] was ~40-50k lower.

Overall [global] CCU (concurrent users) reached 400k, which is huge.

---

Q: How difficult was it to keep the update a secret?

Eek: I can’t imagine how challenging it was for you to not share with any players.

Sergey: It was very funny because we couldn’t guarantee for ourself that we would keep it a secret for the time, but we managed to. Of course, there was some leaks, and our publishing team heroically tried to cover all the leaks, but it was [mostly] just before the release; there was no major leak before : except for… well, you know . We were really happy – the development team – to read feedback from players, since there was not such a big positive vibe in the community for a long time.

---

Tier XI Vehicles

Who was the first person to [legitimately] unlock Black Rock from Sector 3?

First person to unlock Black Rock – Dakillzor. There are already several others who managed to go through this in a marathon, and we’re able to reach Black Rock, but all of them are really high-skill players. [Hence, the current crazy statistics for it on tomato.gg/etc.]

Q: How does the balance and economy look overall for tier 11 right now?

The economy is expectedly stable — there are no very big deviations.

Of course, 2.0 created a huge affect — so right now, the matchmaker, the proportion of players between different tiers is totally different. The proportion between classes and roles is also very different. It is really, really hard to tell [for certain] what some numbers/facts [will look like] — the ground is not stable, it is moving, it is evolving – but for now, despite these big changes for the game at the moment, there is nothing [major] that we need to fix.

The economy for tier 11 is very close to tier 10. It depends on the different vehicles, but on average, the difference is not really big.

---

Q: Performance-wise, is everything going well? (Vehicle popularity/general stats)

Yes – we already have more than 300k people who unlocked tier 11. Most of them unlocked one tank, some of them unlocked two tanks, and a very small amount unlocked more than two.

We know lots of players like to play and unlock the progression manually, not spending Free XP.

We know the popularity of the tanks. We know that KR-1 is the most popular tank, and right now, T803 is very popular, as well as Taschenratte. Top 3 tanks right now are heavy tanks, which was not so common previously. 🇩🇪 Leopard and 🇩🇪 Hirschkäfer, which are connected to two of the most popular tanks of tier 10, are still in the top 5. 🇨🇳 BZ-79 is really close to them. [Overall,] we can see that the popularity of heavy tanks increased a lot.

Concerning balance — yes, we know, we see some of the tanks are a bit higher, or a bit lower, but right now, they are in a really tight spot, with really close competition. Balance-wise, the situation is really good. It is better than I expected, actually; I thought – because of the mechanics, because of lots of things we have never done before – there will be more difference, but right now, it is very, very tight balance, especially on heavy tanks.

That being said, a wave of rebalances for Tier XI vehicles is planned:

---

Q: Future updates for tier 11 – rebalancing?

We started tradition of balance packs [/waves] a few years ago, and we are still keeping this tradition. Despite the fact that right now, balance is in really good shape for tier 11, [we know that] for sure, during this period, some tanks will be on the top, some tanks will be on the bottom. But what is more important is that right now, the ground is not really stable. There are several very important things going on[/factors to consider].

• First one: progression, for example. The heavy tank has its full armor at the beginning, which could be enough to make really good performance at the beginning. but some of the tanks – like sniper tanks – need to level the progression to be the most effective.
• The next section is the actual mechanics. Usually, the performance of the mechanics and performance of the tanks are also evolving with time. Right now, we only have 2 weeks [since the patch], and usually, you see the evolution [over a longer period]. Even now, with the top tanks, you can see some of the tanks[‘ statistics] going down, some of the tanks going up.
  • For example, the Italian autoloaders: when I was not working on the project, but was researching balance history.. [after their initial release,] the performance of these tanks grew exponentially for several months. Players understood how to play them more effectively, and [their performance slowly evolved] month-to-month until it stopped.
  • Right now, we have very similar situation: most of the tanks are not full 11. You can see the data, but you understand that in this data, 10% of the tanks could be fully-leveled.
• Then, there are mechanics; some of the mechanics, most likely our bloggers or other big-impact players, can reimagine the way these mechanics will be used/the best possible strategy will be shared with their audiences, and the performance of these mechanics will also start to grow, or the balance will change.
• Right now, [it has only been] two weeks; the ground is moving, everything is evolving. The player discovering those tanks, upgrades, mechanics. What I can tell for now — there is nothing broken right now; if something was broken, we would be very fast to fix it, but right now, nothing is broken. We need time to see how it goes — if we will fix some tank tomorrow, most likely, he can grow for a month, and appear in a situation where it should be nerfed really soon. We already [have plans] – there will be a balance pack [for them] – but we need some time for things to stabilize, to understand what the exact performance of [each] tank is at the end of the day.

Our plan was to not punish the tier 10s and tier 9s — as you know, there is a gap in [performance] between tier 8 and tier 9, and tier 9 and tier 10. Our initial plan was to calculate the gap, which we can consider organic, so it is not increasing the difference [for tier 11?]. We picked this difference so the previous tiers would feel [as they already are?] in the game, at this level of comfort — for example, 10% difference…

Right now, we have tier 11 tanks, which keep [a similar] distance. But right now, since most of the tanks are not levelled to the max, the distance is even closer to tier 10s. Not a really big distance, but it will slowly move with the upgrades.

The distance was calculated from something that we already have in our history, the distance between tier 9 and tier 10s. That was the initial idea, and now, we are not breaking this distance. We are not in a place where tier 11 is much more powerful than tier 10, and tier 9.

Have you noticed any unique changes or trends in the meta since the update?

Yes, there was some interesting changes — the popularity of heavy tanks was increased, especially for the first few days. We see 30% more heavy tanks right now in matchmaker. We see top tanks right now are moving to heavy tanks, which is a very interesting meta — something even I as a player haven’t experienced in a long time, like fully-heavy, very meaty battles with a huge amount of heavy tanks. But it is still in process — it grew at the beginning, right now it is stabilizing, but it is still different. For example, there are less amount of ▂ artillery in battles right now.

For different reasons, you can see 15% less artillery in the game, and 30% more heavy tanks. That’s kind of the “meta” for the first few weeks.

Will this influence the focus of tier 11 going forward?

… Heavy tanks and medium tanks are what we consider “meta foundation” in World of Tanks — the meta [primarily] stands on these two classes; we have an organically smaller amount of ◈ light tanks and ▼ tank destroyers.

We already have a plan for all tanks[‘ tier 11s?]. We have a bigger amount of  heavy tanks and medium tanks [in the game], and some ◈ light tanks and ▼ tank destroyers, but yes — in the next releases of tier 11, the amount of heavy tanks and medium tanks will be a bit higher because of proportions like this. And of course, we like heavy tanks and medium tanks.

XI ▼ Hirschkäfer and XI 🇩🇪 Leopard 120 – any consideration for rebalancing; what takes so long to make changes?

I see the whole situation, and I know what [the stats were] during our playtests; when we played with fully-upgraded tier 11] tanks, with people who know how to use these mechanics – mostly not average players, but more skilled players – the stats were better than what can see on average in the meta. We still need some time to see how it evolves — [as mentioned previously,] there will be some point when we will release the [tier 11] balance pack. If those tanks will be underperforming, of course, we will fix them.

---

What do you think is making the top 5 tier 11 tanks so popular?

I think it’s a combination.

There are some tanks which are just really loved by our audience; for example, XI KR-1 is continuation of IS-7, and IS-7 was always a popular tank. Even a few weeks ago, before 2.0, it was still very popular on tier 10, despite the fact that it was out of the meta. Some of the tanks bring in the audience, and KR-1 is in the meta. In terms of balance, it is absolutely competitive, and of course, huge amount of audience who will love this tank, come to play [it].

Some of the tanks also came with an existing audience — for example, XI ▼ Hirschkäfer and XI 🇩🇪 Leopard 120 are like Grille and X 🇩🇪 Leopard 1, [which are] some of the most popular tanks in the game. [Hence,] a huge audience will come to check those tanks.

Some of those tanks are popular because of the changes [from tier X] — some of the new mechanics, some of their performance. For example, **XI 🇺🇸 T803 is [a powerful draw,] because the 🇺🇸 T110E5 was not so popular three weeks ago, [then] the audience came and tried different tanks, and [found] the tanks they considered to be [good] / resonate with the playstyles they prefer, or [where] the performance is top-notch.

There are different reasons behind the tanks in the top 5.

There was a lot of concern over the abilities — this is the first time we have something like this in the game. Do you see them performing well? Are they balanced? Are we seeing any affect they have on the meta?

Right now, it’s really hard to measure the ability outside of the tank, but what is important is that we don’t see that [abilities] make up all the difference. The tank is what is important: the ability always supports the tank gameplay, and [should not] be the full definition of the tank. It’s hard to measure, but on balance — if all those [abilities] play to the initial role of the tank, and it fits the performance, and it fits all the other stats we expected, we think it works good.

---

Do you have an example of where the ability has changed the popularity of the tank, once people started figuring it out?

XI 🇺🇸 T803 — at the beginning, it was not a very popular tank, but when players started to brawl with the tank, and, since it is the next version of the T110E5 but without huge cupola (upgraded version), with the new idea which tries to make small peculiarity for the tank [in] aggressive play/brawling/active play — at some point, players understood that the mechanic gives you some advantage if you will be able to play/brawl aggressively. Just an example.

For XI Taschenratte, [on the other hand, it is] pretty hard to measure [how much of its popularity] is just the superheavy armor/”revival” of Maus, or the auxiliary gun [system], but it is [some] combination.

Big Rebalance

[The focus] right now is to measure — the influence from the [current surge in] audience/the game is so big, so [the data] is very noisy. Lots of things changed because of a huge number of reasons. We [at least] know that we haven’t broken anything, we know it [largely] works as intended, but for some parts of the rebalance, we need things to come down, and to measure it outside of this huge affect. [But from] what we can see for now, everything goes good [so far].

X 🇯🇵 Type 5 buff – how’s it looking?

X 🇯🇵 Type 5 Heavy looks really powerful at the moment. We are looking at it — if it will be too powerful, it will be welcome to our first balance pack.

Eek: “Enjoy it while you can, guys”

With new balance waves (packs) coming — any plans for collector/premium vehicles?

Right now, I cannot share specific plans; we would like to work with[/iron out?] the existing changes [to other/regular vehicles first], because new changes will create additional [data] noise.

Ammunition compensation?

Sergey: Yes, there will be (one-time) compensation for players who are affected [by the ammo getting moved around/no longer being compatible with the tanks featuring new/replaced modules].

Eek: This information will be shared when it is ready, but we haven’t forgotten it.

Garage / UI

Garage/UI are a hot topic among the community; can you share some of the reasons why these changes were made?

First was game evolution: we had a very big amount of features that we needed to implement, and it was very hard to do with the old structure and technology.

We needed to make the interfaces more convenient, we needed to bring new useful features, and we needed to make it more appealing for new and returning players for 2025, because it’s the face of the game on the market.

Second reason: the technology [moving away from Scaleform/Flash].

Our [old] interfaces were made on Scaleform technology, using Adobe Flash, which Adobe stopped supporting five years ago. Right now, it’s outdated technology with stopped support; it’s really hard to develop on this technology because right now, most of the specialists are moving on from [it]. That’s also a [big] reason, but only the second reason.

Can you share what the current garage interface is built on?

Right now, [we use] Gameface, which is kind of popular — even Minecraft uses Gameface, so [this should show that] a huge amount of games use it.

There are still lots of Flash [elements currently] in the game, but gradually, we will work on [replacing them]. [We want to] bring new functionality, bring better functionality — not just a reskin. But the hangar was the biggest part [hence, it was the first step].

What was our thought process to go this direction with the garage? Why did we pick this layout/system?

The main direction was, of course, several principles — one of them was the evolution, not revolution.

We had a big list of some things we want to implement in the game, but it should all be inside the critical cycle of functions for the players. It should support, from the beginning, everything the players are used to, but it should also allow us to fix some of these cycles.

…The tanks’ info [for example] — you would like to understand if this tank has a different type of gun, or some ability? Previously, it was really hard to find this information inside the game[/without third party tools etc]. So [we wanted to improve]:

• The tanks’ info [pages].
• The armor inspector.
• The ability to navigate a huge [garage] collection. Our players had increasing collections, and those collections of the tanks are huge, and you need to propose some way how to manage this collection more effectively.
• The playlists — a feature we wanted to add a long time ago.
• The goal section [referring to the right-hand panel in the garage, showing missions/current game events/etc.] — as you know, we changed the goal section not only with daily quests, but supporting all events ongoing right now, because sometimes those events are [crossing over] in the game, and players should know exactly what activities they have right now.

And actually, many more. So the basic approach was evolution, not revolution, [as well as] the ability, after this evolution, to add huge amount of new, cool features.

What are some of the planned improvements/QoL adaptations you have planned for the new UI already?

We[‘re looking at all the feedback], checking all the comments — and yes, of course, we already have some small improvements, like the brightness of the text and so on. But, working on the interfaces, what we brought to 2.0 is not everything we worked[/are working] on. Some of [the changes were] really hard to pack into this patch, so we had some directions and improvement which we already had in development [but hadn’t made it into the game yet!]. Some of them, we can bring with future patches.

You [won’t] have to wait really long. In some of the upcoming patches, you will see some improvements; for example:

• Fast, one-click access to some functions which were before — we are working on this topic.
• The ability to navigate your collection, [while being able to see] the crew perks — we are working on this.
• Even the battle button on the post-battle screen — we had this designed from the start, but it was hard for us to bring it to 2.0 due to technical reasons.

[These changes] will not take a year — they [will appear] pretty soon.

I heard something about planned to playlists/armor inspector?

We are working on a second update for armor inspector. Of course, we know the basic functionality that players are using on third-party sites, and of course, we would like to bring some of them [into the game], [while also working] to fix some of the bugs, to change the armor [/turret modules] or guns[, and so on].

As for the playlists, these will [be updated to] support all big activities. There are some specific cases like gamemodes with tank selection inside the session like Frontline/Onslaught, but all those modes will also support the playlist. Playlist will be supported by all major activities [modes/events] in the future.

Matchmaker

Q: Are you happy with all the numbers/stats/metrics revolving around matchmaker?

Yes. It works! The first very good news. We rewrote the core for matchmaker, we tested it before, but never on such a high load – and not just a high load, but one of the highest loads in the past few years – and it works good. The average wait time is also really good, but the audience surge helps us, since we see such a huge spike [in player numbers], which will make the matchmaker work even better.

Matchmaker rework – some improvements we’ve seen already from 2.0?

Matchmaker was a super success for us, because we managed to rewrite the core, allowing us to do something we’ve never been allowed before technically.

We launched 2.0 with a huge amount of audience, different servers/regions. We see, for example, that we managed to keep 95% of the battles balanced with roles. The only exception that could be very low-populated servers in a midnight/non-prime-time situation — [in these cases], matchmaker will prefer to actually throw players into the game. But 95% of the battles right now are balanced using the roles.

And it works good. Even [in] the low-populated regions, [matchmaking works] faster, works better. We know that right now, the wait time for tier 11s –6-7% of the battles on the top-level are tier 11 – 99.8% of the games were gathered in less than 60 seconds. It was super fast, and super convenient. Very deep in the night, there could be a little bit longer, but most of the time it works really good.

Increased +/-1 battles – have we seen an improvement?

Yes — for example, you can sort before 2.0 and after 2.0. The comfort on tier 5, tier 6, and tier 7 was drastically improved. Right now, for tier 5 and 6, no more than 5% of the battles are seen in -2 [“deep-bottom” tier]. For tier 7, it’s around 10-11%; really small amount of battles played are in bottom-tier. That’s a great comfort increase.

Eek: I know it can change based on server population… it depends on how busy the server is, how full the queue is at times.

Have you noticed any interesting lineups/battles after the update?

I think it’s something we already discussed a little — yes, we see more heavy tanks, especially in the first few days, it was like a superheavy meta. +30%[heavy] tanks in the game, less ▂ artillery, the other limitations [vehicle roles/hard cap on ▼ TDs/etc.] started to work. It is a big part of this wave — right now, it is moving further, it changes. Ask me a bit later, and we will tell you. But for now, it is something like this.

Have we seen an impact on queue times overall?

| Less wait time. Because of the technology and the spike of the audience. These two things are helping us to decrease the wait time.

Q: Steamrolls can – and may – still happen; are we seeing any reduction of them from the MM update?

It was not the focus for 2.0. Focus was to bring the new core and lots of other new functionality, but what I can tell you is: this is not the end of matchmaker development. Before 2.0, during the several months, we made several experiments with matchmaker – as announced on the site, [we tested] a set of experiments – and during our experiments, we found some configurations which can reduce the amount of steamroll games. Like, seriously decrease. But, we need to continue our experiments, because [implementing this alongside] all the features in 2.0… was too risky, because we were [also] launching the new core. We will continue our experiments, there will be additional updates in the future, and we know how we can influence those steamroll battles. That’s what I will say.

Eek: Matchmaker isn’t the only cause, potentially, of steamroll battles. We’re looking at it.

Maps (+ Insight on the Development “Pause”)

Why don’t we keep adding more and more maps?

The story started a few years ago: at [that] time, we were delivering around one map in a year, and there was a very interesting situation… Every new map we brought with the players, was always the biggest downvote from the audience, and [became] the top banned map.

[This became] the question — to find out what are the reasons. Because we have more than 40 maps. we don’t want to [just] add a map [for the sake of adding something new, regardless of how good it is] — our goal is to make players happy, to give them new, fresh, and interesting experiences. If you bring new maps, just because you need to bring the map – without any feedback from the audience – that [would not serve the game well]. This prompted] the biggest question: What we have to do to change the trend? Because why [should] we add maps, which are not loved by the audience? That is why we took a break.

Right now, we have one new map released [Nordskarl]. We have a battle rating [system] — you can rate the battle, and [we] can use this tool to understand what maps are rated a bit higher or a bit lower. These numbers [the data gathered from these votes] are huge, so [we can see] average numbers, giving us [a picture]. The new map, right now, is in the top 3 maps for voting, so it is good feedback.

What is important – for the sake of not doing it like in old times, but to make an evolution – for this process, we need to make a set of experiments, and to bring it to you, to players, to play.

Yes, we would like to add more maps. But, we would not like to do it in a very old-school way. And yes, we will start this activity next year.

Recon Mission? Or maybe something else?

Biggest challenges developing maps? What makes a good map?

What makes a new map a good map? The player experience.

If the map brings some interesting new environment, new challenges, new strategy, and the players are happy, then [that’s what we are looking for]. In the old roster, we know all of our cycle, we understand this map fits this roster, fits this ecosystem? That’s a good map.

But what is complicated working with maps? Right now, you cannot answer, what is the absolutely-good[/best all-around?] map. Let’s take Prokhorovka, for example — this map will be very high in our ratio, because less classes hate this map, not because they super love this map. It will be in the top 3 for ▂ artillery, hulldown heavy tanks, ▼ sniper tanks, ◈ light tanks. But yes – for example, if you can check the same map for the superheavies, absolutely opposite situation — [it becomes a bottom 2 map].

[Then,] let’s take Himmelsdorf – could be in the top 3 for some heavy tanks, but it would be one of the worst maps for some of the classes. So it’s really hard to make everybody happy. And usually, if you’re making somebody really, really happy, then for somebody [else], they consider to ban it/find it nearly unplayable. So that’s one of the biggest challenges — how to make [a map appealing for most].

If you are not [looking] deeper — the open map will always be highly-rated, but will it bring this experience, new challenges, new gameplay? That’s why we need a set of brave experiments.

Eek: It’s very much, “how do you create a map that makes everybody happy, if everybody wants different things?”

Why don’t we introduce old maps? What about future plans?

Another part of working with maps — from all the ratios, from all the ban lists, we know for example, the Chinese map (Empire’s Border) is one of the most problematic maps. But when we are trying to bring the variation of this map, to rework it drastically on supertest, the feedback you can hear from the audience is “this iteration is a good one, but NO, do not remove the old one”, because “I really like the part of the map for heavy tanks brawling”… but this is not the solution to the problem, because the map is problematic due to its structure, how the [lines are separated]. Traditionally, you can add anything, but it’s really hard to remove anything in World of Tanks.

When you are talking of the old maps — I have dug into this question, especially for the last two years, and there was no map that was removed [which] was not really, really problematic from a level design standpoint. Right now, we actually put one of the old maps on supertest [Swamp], and we made several changes, but the feedback is not really high.

So of course, there is some nostalgic sentiment. But when we really took the map that we tried to bring in a different variations back, the players are not voting for this, because there were always some problems on those maps, or you have to solve all those problems, play it on supertest, or you have to think about the future — because [those old maps are not always] really working good.

More Future Q&A Sessions

Will we see more presentations/calls/talks? Maybe not stage presentations at Gamescom, but do you have any plans to talk to us more in the future?

Sure! I would prefer to keep this communication when we have something to talk about, when I have something to tell you, or there is something in the community that is good to be discussed. But yes, sure, at least once per-quarter — not every month for sure, because we need to work. I think it’s really good to have such conversation at least once per quarter, or once per big amount of topics gathered/ready to discuss.

Can you share any secret teasing/events that might be coming this week?

Right after 2.0, we packed the schedule really tightly — we already had Onslaught [Light], and I hope you’re playing Last Stand. But yes — tomorrow, we are launching the return of Waffenträger [article], which — from a game design standpoint — is very exotic, because there isn’t so much synchronized PvP gameplay on the market. [News] will be released tomorrow.

source: WoT InfoCord