Thanks to BattleBudgie for emailing us.
Hey TAP,
as a fellow WoT player, I regularly visit the blog and I witnessed numerous times that you asked the players about different upcoming, planned, or just brainstorming features. That gave me an idea about something we’ve been hearing from WG employees for ages, but nothing solid has been said so far, namely the customization of the tank exterior.
More and more HD models have been coming out recently, and they seem to have more and more visual decorations that could be easily (re)movable and interchangeable if the game had some kind of micromanagament system for it. What I’m talking about is the rolled up tents/canvas/camo nets, tools, logs etc. For example ones like the Russian T9 heavy, T-10 has on its hull/turret (the upcoming T10 lights and Thunderbolt Sherman seem exceptionally well-decorated as well). These could be easily adopted and applied on other tanks, giving them a more original, personal feel.
However, I would make this interesting and take it one step further. What would be even more cool? Adding stuff to your tank that noticeably improves its protection in battle. Namely factory-made or “home-made” applique armor (think of SuperPershing, or – again – the upcoming Thunderbolt), track pieces, sandbags, pieces of concrete (yup, those were a thing). Now I understand this wouldn’t be a piece of cake to balance out properly. A Maus having concrete slabs on its turret front and belly? Wow, no thanks. But it wouldn’t be impossible either.
First of all, these pieces couldn’t be placed anywhere on the tank, only on predefined mounting points. This way, devs could prevent players with heavily armored heavies which have only very few weakspots to cover those (balance-wise) essential, thinner areas with extra armor. So, applique armor and such could only be mounted on specific areas, giving tanks that use them some welcome boost in protection without making them OP and impenetratable.
Secondly, these things would have their own weight, preventing players from applying too many of them (tank weight limits should be balanced accordingly) AND decreasing the tank’s mobility noticeably. In other words, you could turn a decently-balanced medium tank into a well-protected one but only at the cost of its agility (Seb: I’d also reduce the turret rotation speed in case extra armor is applied there).
These protection-increasing add-ons could have a wide array, making them even more elemental in terms of gameplay and player skill. They could have different types, all with their own properties. For example, primitive cage appliques were effective against HEAT shells, but giving virtually no extra defence against AP and APCR. As such, sandbags could give exceptional bonuses against HE impacts, while extra armor plates would be the jack-of-all-trades, reasonably increasing protection against every kind of ammunition but not giving a large bonus against any one of them. Concrete blocks could have the highest protection values of them all but they would degrade from incoming shots, eventually getting destroyed.
One more thing: these extra armor modules could be divided into different categories, like light, medium and heavy (eg. light/medium/heavy concrete applique, light/medium/heavy steel applique). Light tanks could only mount the light variants, mediums and TDs the light and medium ones, while heavy tanks could mount the heaviest pieces as well. This would protect the inherited class balance, for example preventing medium tank players to turn their medium tank into a heavy one by mounting massive extra armor on it. Vehicle classes are there for a reason after all, aren’t they?
What I’m trying to say is that with smart balancing, and a bit of imagination, this feature could bring a new level of depth into the game, while also being exciting and popular. Who doesn’t love screwing up an old, rusty bedframe on their tank after all?
Now, please understand that I’m only brainstorming here, these things would all require extensive balancing and a large amount of work on WG’s side but personally I can’t see why they can’t be added eventually, bringing a new and exciting feature into the game.
I’d like you to vote in following poll or comment about the idea. I consider this a really good suggestion for WoT, especially since eventually WG will run out of new content to add in the game.
[polldaddy poll=9720218]
