Hello,

as promised, here is the Armored Warfare’s Q&A with SilentStalker.

Like said before, I find the Q&As that AW usually posts on the portal are too professional (its understandable, the questions are gathered from AW forums by staff and sent to a office who then writes the answers) and I feel like the game needs a more personal approach with the community, a little bit of “how terrible” and “when its done its done” doesn’t hurt, quite the contrary.

From all the AW staff I know, couldn’t think of someone more perfect than SilentStalker, not only he knows enough about the subject, he is also in a position strong enough to be able to talk without being afraid. And the best thing, you as a RSR readers get to ask and get answers first hand. 🙂

Here it is:

Any chance we’ll see the VT-1 (German), Merkava, M60 120S, and M60A4 in the near future.

In near future – no (apart from the Merkava). But we are always keeping an eye on cool vehicles, so it’s possible these vehicles will appear in AW sooner than later.

I’d be curious if they will add tanks like the Jaguar, Tank EX, and the Sabalan
These specific tanks are not planned for immediate future.

Can you give us any more details on the second challenger 2 (tier 10)?
Not at the moment apart from what you’ve already seen 🙂 Its main feature will be its extremely thick armor but like any vehicle it will have its weakpoint.

When can we expect tier 10 vehicles and which vehicles will make an appearance in the first batch?
Some were already unveiled – the XM1A3, T14 Armata, Leopard 2A7+, SPHINX.

Chinese/Asian tier 9 and 10 candidates?
Possibly the K2 or an advanced version of the Type 99

Any tier 9 and 10 TD candidates and in connection to that what is the fate of Centauro 155?
No, these two elements are unrelated. As for high tier tank destroyer candidates – there are some, but it would be too early to unveil them now.

Is it possible to make a full branch of AA vehicles (such as B1 Draco) all the way to tier 10?
In theory yes.

Are you planning to implement any new features and functionalities in the next few updates?
Absolutely. Check out the 0.14 preview we recently released. Another thing that was already mentioned is the upcoming competitive mode Lords of War (something like a hybrid of Companies and Team battles but the rating and reward mechanism will be completely different).

When will high tier LTs get their smoke rounds and will they get APS at all?
LT’s will get a balance pass – for example the M8 is getting smoke rounds in Update 0.14. But APS? I don’t believe there are plans to add them to LTs.

Are tier 9 and 10 SPGs considered? Also are you planning to fill the gaps in the current SPG branches?
Yes and yes, but before adding more artillery vehicles we want to balance the current arty to our satisfaction. They won’t come anytime very soon.

What new structures can we expect in the Base?¨
Sorry, too early to tell. I can’t say.

Are there plans for any new game modes?
Yep. The above mentioned Lords of War for example. Another thing that’s in development is something like Clanwars (we already talked about that in the past a bit) but there’s one more super exciting mode coming that I can’t talk about yet. But on paper it looks very cool. No ETA of course.

Do you plan to do anything to make the game a bit easier for newcomers? Some people are having a hard time because the DPM to HP ratio is very high so there’s little room for error.
Yes. There is a task in place to specifically make the game easier to learn. I can’t share any details ATM (I don’t know them, this kind of stuff is usually a combination of UI and other elements).

I would like to know what a normal day at the office is for the devs, community managers, etc. Would be a nice insight and could make them more… well, we could maybe relate to them more in terms of “hey, it’s a job I was hired to do – but here’s HOW we go about it”
I work externally from Prague. My working day usually starts between 8 and 10 AM and ends at around 1 AM to 3 AM (I know, no life 🙁 ). On good days it’s pretty much a combination of writing content, reading feedback and some other stuff (whatever needs to be done), on bad days it involves a lot of cursing.  (RG: I testify on that.)

I heard that if you place someone one your ignore list the MM will never put them in a battle with you, if this is true it seems broken.
No, doesn’t work like that as far as I know.

Is there any chance of getting further tank customizations, like add on cage armor after you have unlocked it on a high tier being able to add it to lower tiers, same goes for ERA and APS, also having a choice after unlocking better equipment on high tiers to replace the poorer quality one on the lower tiers. like a thermal sight or air conditioning ect.Yeah. There are some plans but it’s very hush hush, so I better not spoil anything.

Also for those who like to still play low tiers can you expand the proven line of turning in XP for credits.
Don’t understand the question but we generally don’t encourage sealclubbing.

Are there plans for PVE-ONLY vehicles? (vehicles that are not possible to balance into PVP)
Not to my knowledge. Would be quite a waste though – introducing a vehicle

When should we expect to see the IS-7 and what is the most probable tier? Is there any chance to see the IS-3 and IS-8/T-10 as lower tiers as well?
No current ETA, too early to tell, sorry. As for tier, I think it’s possible to implement it around 3 or 4, for its time it really was quite a beast.

How about Obj. 279, that beast deserves a place in a video game !
You are immobilized! You are immobilized! You are immobilized! You are immobilized! You are immobilized!

Can you say what the tier 8 candidate is for the BMP line I’m loving that line so far I’m at tier 6 and I’m having a lot of fun with these machines so I’m curious to know what the tier 8 could be? (also same for the wiesel line)
Again, hard to say. None in very near future, although there are some obvious candidates such as the 57mm BMP-3 (Derivatsiya).

Will it ever be possible to change the base colour of premium vehicles like the ICE tanks or the Cheiftan Mk6? (As in the white on the ICE or green on the Cheif being able to be changed to a different base colour, but the rest of the paint stays)
As far as I know this is not planned.

We were promised some “European” vehicles (french,swedish,polish,czech,etc) this year. Any details ?
We did already announce the Polish and Czechoslovak candidates. You can bet that the Leclerc is coming as well, but we can’t really give you any ETA.

Are you planning to add a tier 6 premium to the new dealer too? Which vehicle going to be it, and when?
There’s another premium candidate there somewhere but for now it won’t be introduced.

What will happen with arty AI (PvE) ? Right now it destroys one player’s game and makes playing arty useless.
We recently introduced some adjustments to arty in 0.13, they seem to have improved the situation to a degree.

I’ve noticed that quite often, AI can blindfire you quite efficiently : if you’re not spotted anymore but they were targetting you, and you get out of cover (still unspotted) they may aim at you like if you were spotted (thus aim weakspots and all). Anything on that ?
Bots can’t fire at you before you get spotted. Not even artillery. The thing is, you don’t for example know what the bots exactly are seeing. If you are at the moment the only vehicle on their radar, yea, they will target you. This is to a large degree a perception problem. If they were regular players in the same situation, they’d behave the same way but because they are AI opponents, everyone assumes they are cheating.

I experience quite often a bug where consumables use themselves and ammo swaps by itself. That makes the game quite unplayable, especialy in PvE where your ressuply kit gets used in 10s. What happens is after each time you click (to fire the gun for exemple) the game somehow detects your mouse in UI mode (like when you press ctrl) for a fraction of second (until you move the mouse) over a random element on your ammo/consumable area. So if you reclick again without paying attention (like in tense moments when you spam the click in order to fire asap before taking a shot back) you end up doing an unwanted action. I apparently am not the only one with this bug. Will it be fixed soon (if it has been reported already) ?
That’s not a bug I am aware of. I’ll ask if there are more reports like this.

Please get harbinger out of PvE rotation. It is impossible because of arty AI and lag caused by too much vegetation, and takes an hard-difficulty slot.
Yeah we know that the Harbinger is a constant source of irritation. We’ll be fixing it.

Will there be a +1/-1 mm on PvP ? The tier difference is much bigger on AW compared to WoT. From one tier to another the difference could be being able to kill or not. Tier 6s vs tier 8s, or tier 7s vs 9s are not fair at all, and as the game is so dynamic, you cant really just “wait till ennemies are damaged and fewer before moving”
No it is not actually, many battles are +/-1. On the other hand, the matchmaker has to have – especially on NA server – some amount of leniency; otherwise you’d get really extreme queue waiting times. It’s always some sort of quid pro quo – restrict MM, increase waiting times. I am assuming these issues appear on NA more often than on EU due to the minimal NA population. Until NA population increases, there’s little the matchmaker can do without breaking down.

Most PvP battles end with results like 14-0, 11-0, etc… I rarely see battles end in any “close” way (often 7-10 tank difference if not 15). Battles are dominated by some class of tanks (depending on maps) and arty is badly balanced in mm (2 M109s with high splash high dmg vs 2 gvosdikas with low everything. Who will win counterbattery I wonder). Will all that be fixed with incoming mm changes ?
Overwhelming results are actually not something directly connected to MM. AW is a much faster game than WoT, we don’t have big fat bunkers on tracks rolling around at snail’s pace. The recent Developer Diary about matchmaking actually explains this to a degree as well. As for class domination, I don’t think that’s really a massive problem (apart from the fact that currently the MBTs are a bit too strong, we will start to address that in the next patch), the high tier balance as a whole is something to be fixed though and that’s what we will do now. As for balancing the exactly same type of artillery versus each other… no. That wouldn’t work even on WoT that has considerably higher playerbase.
And finally :
-May we expect more tier 9s for current dealers (like a tier 9 wheeled TD for Wolfi) ?
When it’s done it’s done 🙂

-PvE Question: Given that armored warfare is meant to be set in the future and that the players are part of a private military company not like the US, UK, Russian, etc. will we face enemies that are essentially above tier 10?
We don’t want to introduce pure sci-fi elements, the border which we do not want to cross is represented by the XM1A3 (a mashup of existing or prototype Abrams elements including the CATTB 140mm gun). On the other hand, this is what it is right now. If in a few years a vehicle with considerably different technology is introduced to public, who knows?

Will there be other enemies we could face in PvE such as drones both flying and tracked / wheeled?
Not in immediate future but as always, such stuff (namely technicals, I am a big fan of Mad Max style vehicles) might come in the future.

Is AW (or a spin-off project) ever going to have WW2 era tanks?
Not specifically. But then again, T-54 is a pretty much very late wartime tank, so who knows? Super Shermans are a must when it comes to Israeli branch and those are basically wartime vehicles refitted for Israeli service.

Ok here are my questions:
-Any chances of another european-themed AFV tree (from top of my head, SKOT, Pandur, Rosomak, BWP-40, CV-90 series, Pizarro, Puma)
Yes
-any chances of Japanese and South Korean tanks joining the chinese ones in the new dealer tree?
Yes
-Chances of wheeled arty branch (G-6, Dana) ?
Yes (although I wouldn’t call it a branch, just some individual vehicles)

-Will there be more events to get Gold? (Im talking about massive amounts like the 3k not 50g every 7 days)
Marketing stuff is something I can’t answer on principle.
Also could we please get some Credit Events? Im really struggling to buy all the stuff i unlock :/One was announced just today 🙂
Any plans on making high tier (6+) PvP less awful? Every battle is the same : people camp until they have a 6 to 7 kill lead, then mop up the survivors. It’s especially boring when you decided to play something other than MBT and the Wiesel, and any aggressive action on your end makes you die quasi-instantly.
Yes, first rebalances are planned for 0.14

Would it ever possible to switch your progress to another server?
No, this is not planned (a great way to completely kill the NA server though).

Can SS reveal the guy who provided the informations and data for OE to build the Chinese(PLA) MBT line? And ask him/her why the f**k not bringing the Type 96 in.
Obviously not. As for the Chinese line yeah well… more MBTs will be added in the future.
Moreover, Merkava please
Ok
Will the Croatian MBT the M95 Degman be making an appearance in the game? Or the American LAV-25 used by the US Marines?In theory. No near plans.

-Why does AW keep doing time based events? They are very annoying for basically all of the world as most people are either at work / school, or sleeping when they are happening.
Because we wanted as many people as possible playing during those specific times.

That’s all folks!

A big thanks to SilentStalker. 🙂