Greetings,

These are the latest ST upgrade changes:

Torpedo Lookout System (slot #5):

• Removed the bonus that gave +5% to the ship’s torpedo protection.

Damage Control System Modification 1 (slot #2):

• Removed the bonus that gave +2% to the ship’s torpedo protection.

We decided to remove bonuses to ship torpedo protection, as it could lead to excessive efficiency of these upgrades.

That’s all for today!

Greetings,

rather than making my own little ranty article I would like to, instead, see your opinion about the New Balance changes presented to us.

Please, if you are not acquainted with them yet read these articles before you vote:

• New Balance Tests
• New Balance: List of Tanks that will be withdrawn/transferred to promotional + Tech Tree Changes
• New Balance CC Q&A

Thank you for your time and if you have any other suggestion feel free to add them int he comments section!

-Thanks to yogertdog for featured image.

-Thanks to the Church of comfort crew for helping with some of the polls

Greetings,

Community Contributors were given the opportunity to participate in a Q&A about the New Balance, there won’t be many questions here as very few CC participate in these.

The truth, it is very time-wasting for me personally to be gathering questions from the community which answers then can’t be brought back to you because Wargaming had the brilliant idea of making them NDA, defeating the whole purpose of having Q&As in the first place, a bit frustrating when I am still hearing angry viewers/readers asking for their answers back to this day when it was not up to me!

The most frustrating part is that years ago I immediately gave constructive feedback and explained why treating Q&As like they have is just an extremely flawed system just for a year or so later Ph3lan complained that no feedback was given… sigh.

Anyway, apparently, These New Balance answers were allowed to be shared with you even who there was nothing stating so in the announcement tab, something that I have already discussed today with Wargaming about, TO LET CCs KNOW and hopefully we can move on and they will improve in the future.

Here it is:

CC Question.

• CC Feedback

1. Answer

Does this mean the effectiveness of the special rounds in the FV4005 and 215b will now be next to worthless? And HE also for the likes of the type4 and 5? Why keep it for the KV2 and KV2(R)? –The RealSJ (saltyjedi)

• Finally, a mechanic which will mean the end-user has to think more about ammo types instead of mindless ‘special ammo’ spamming.

1. We can’t really share details right now about how specific tanks will be affected by the changes but you will be able to try them all out for yourself and share feedback on Monday.
   KV-2 receives special treatment because of how often it penetrates it’s targets with HE currently

Why not just limit the number of the special shells to 1/3 of the ammunition?. Also, in my oppinion players will now start to spam HE at higher level tanks. It’s cheaper, and you are damaging them. –Kojot

• -empty feedback-

1. The goal here was to change the sell ecosystem so that different shells would be more adequate in different situations and not have one straight out better.
   The first internal tests did not show players spamming HE but that’s also why we have the tests, we will see next week if that happens.

What about the British HESH like on Tier 9 Centurion? Very important on this Tank! How about the Lowtiers? Hetzer? PzIV A etc?
All these Tanks are more or less useless without their HE Guns. These are just some Examples, there are many more.
Why buffing Arty? How can Special Arty Ammunition (aka: MORE BOOM) does more Damage, has larger Splash and DOES NOT STUN?
How will you explain this?
How will Armor of certain Tanks changed? Will it changed at all? You have to take away enemys HP. If you cant pen it
(aka Standart Shell) you HAVE to use Pr0mium Rounds. And there are many Tanks in game with way to high Armor.
On the Other side: We have a lot of Tanks that are only playable if you use a large Ammount of Pr0mium. What will happen there?
Most important question: Why you take away the FUN you can have with the dedicated HE Tanks? –Hetzenauer0815

• I am very interested how this will hit the community and the game. You change reliable Coremechanics of the game, that does not need to be touched, because they WORK. For the lowtiers you are presenting a technical solution for a human problem (ppl are to lazy to learn the game) that wont help at all, because then ppl are hit at mid/high Tier with even MORE punishment of failures. Will you attract new players with that? Dont think so, because they dont care. Will you mess up with your old, reliable players? Yes. Oh boy YES you will.

1. – For tanks that use HE shells as a fundamental element of gameplay, we tried to adjust their shell characteristics in the new system in such a way as to maintain the same average efficiency. Almost all High-Explosive and HESH shells with the new mechanics cannot penetrate armor. HE shells, which in the old system differed from others due to their higher penetration values, now do more damage as compensation.
   – Arty is not getting buffed, their special shell will deal more damage than the standard one currently does but keep in mind all vehicle will also receive an increase in HP so these changes will balance themselves out.
   – We can’t really share details right now about how specific tanks will be affected by the changes but you will be able to try them all out for yourself and share feedback on Monday.

In the course of the game changes will the wheeled vehicles get their own class? –L4ny_

• I am curious how all this will affect the game, see the changes as positive

1. No that won’t change with the New Balance.

My question would have been along the same lines as Kojot – why not introduce a more ‘historical’ balance / availability for standard / special shells. Make the qty’s available more in line with how they would have been historically in that particular vehicle. That way, you encourage more skilled play with standard rounds and saving the special rounds for those difficult or appropriate situations. –Nikitaq

• Very well put together document – easy to understand. With changes to HE I was sceptical – but I would like to visit those changes for myself and see. I’m very happy to see the iconic KV-2 (+R) will retain it’s HE capabilities. I’m also interested in the changes to artiliery – very ineresting indeed. The other items (tech tree, stats etc) are a welcome change and will hopefully make things far easier for new players to establish their direction and capability within the game. The new standard/special shell mechanics are also interesting for me – very interested to see how that works.

1. Same answers: The goal here was to change the sell ecosystem so that different shells would be more adequate in different situations and not have one straight out better.

Only KV2 is unchanged? So what about the other tanks? Pz IV H, F-30, Sherman, FV215 183? What about the missions for Stun and SPG? Will they changed? –Mootality

• -empty feedback-

1. – For tanks that use HE shells as a fundamental element of gameplay, we tried to adjust their shell characteristics in the new system in such a way as to maintain the same average efficiency. Almost all High-Explosive and HESH shells with the new mechanics cannot penetrate armor. HE shells, which in the old system differed from others due to their higher penetration values, now do more damage as compensation.
   – Several missions for SPGs and other classes will be affected by these changes, we plan to change them so that they stay on the same level of difficulty as now. Some of them might even be disabled at first until the exact fine-tuning is figured out.

Nice for the KV-2, but what about all the other tanks of this type : G1R, Pz IV H, etc … ? Are you not afraid to see HE spam in Hight tier (more easy to do damage on heavy armor tank, and cheaper than premium amo ) ? Don’t you think player don’t play troll gun for their dpm, but for their fun ? by how much do you hope to increase the average length of a game with the increase HP ? ^_^ –Balrog22

• I am spectical about the change, i don’t think it will chnage a lot, i think peaple will always use premium ammo to ensure their stats, but i hope i woulf be wrong. For the HE round you can see my questions on the left. And for the armor i don’t think the solution is to increase hp, for me you choose the more easiest way, and for me it’s not the good one. The “old” player came for armor tank, and now they have impresion to be the delicacy for medium, and light tank. The modification on the tech tree is a good news for the new player, but you will loose some player who like to ply with historical tank, and not only paper tank. And i hope we will modify, and had new tuto in game for new player to explain mechanics of the game.

1. – For tanks that use HE shells as a fundamental element of gameplay, we tried to adjust their shell characteristics in the new system in such a way as to maintain the same average efficiency. Almost all High-Explosive and HESH shells with the new mechanics cannot penetrate armor. HE shells, which in the old system differed from others due to their higher penetration values, now do more damage as compensation.
   – Right now we are not afraid of that happening but that is also why we have an open testing phase and if it happens we will see it then.

Main question I have is about rebalancing of certain vehicles regarding the proposed changes, and since that is too specific, will not make any sort of those atm 🙂

Edit : Is there any plan to balance the s….. out of some vehicles that have hilariously low ammo capacity? 261? Crappycore? 🙂
If You want to make ammo changes, it would be nice if those vehicles would actually have some ammo to carry around… 😀 –BarbaUrke

• Tbh, ever since hearing about proposed ammo changes I voiced my concearns about HE shells – if they are constantly making dmg, I think that players will just start spamming them at all times, and have even less incentive to learn the mechanics. Also, even tho I fully understand the biz/economical reasons for “runing thru” lower tiers, I STRONGLY DISSAGREE with that idea, since players have Z E R O ways of learning even the basics of game before reaching high tiers. This game, altho being arcade in nature has loads of complex technical intricacies that is seriously hard to master to huge amount of players. “Dumbing down” of parts of game + enabling OBNOXIOUSLY FAST AND OVERLY EASY grind is road to even worse changes in meta. All in all, I’m very very VERY scepticall of benefits of this changes, to put it in PC way… 🙂P.S : is it possible that after NINE years new players don’t have ANY SORT OF reasonable tutorial???????????
  P.P.S : You REALLY REALLY REALLY need to find someone that can make UI up to 20th century standards, for start…

1. – We can’t really share details right now about how specific tanks will be affected by the changes but you will be able to try them all out for yourself and share feedback on Monday.
   – Same answer for ammo capacity, we will see on Monday although even if that’s not the case right now, there is no reason it could not be adjusted later especially for something as reasonable and logical as this.

1. I understand the reduction and streamlining lower tiers idea. If I didn’t misunderstood it you will be able to buy the vehicles which got “relocated” for credits in the store page. But what kind of T6+ tanks will there be removed? Will they also be available for credits. Will there be a grind attached to it? Are there T8+ Tanks getting “relocated”
2. If you want to streamline earlier tiers, will we also see a rebalance of stockgrinds? Lately most stockgrinds are bearable and I have to say my congrats on the IS-2-2 and IS-3-2 which actually work stock. But looking at tanks like IS-M or Tiger 1 and 2 I get depression from such stockgrinds.
3. How will the global HP buff affect artillery? Will it be possible for Tier 10 Tanks to oneshot arties with standard Ammo? Because at the moment most of the time HE has to be loaded and pen the artillery to oneshot it. Very crucial in 1 v 1 endgame scenarios where arty can splash you and kill you and win a game
4. Last iteration arty kept their HE Pen, why? HE Pen is being removed on almost all vehicles but arty keeps that random dice moment?
5. Will AP on Arty be more accurate then HE? Because if not, AP doesn’t really have any place in my opinion as it is incredible random and can be frustrating for the arty player ( Bouncing, Traaaaaacks etc) and frustrating for the player ( full HP ammorack bc of high module dmg)
6. How fast will you start rebalancing tanks after the Prem Ammo rework? I have my concerns that highly armored tanks like Sconq, Chieftain, 279, 430U, Type 5 Heavy will get even stronger after that rework.
7. Will you reintroduce weakspots to the game again? I am looking at 430U cuploas, Sconqs cupola etc. I do think you did a decent job with balancing armor on the ST-2 Line and would like to see more like this being reintroduced to other tanks.
8. It was mentioned that Credits will be adjusted, how is that looking with EXP earned? More dmg = more exp, right?
9. Is the whole HE change a buff to glass canons like Grille 15, STRV, Stage II etc? As you can’t punish them anymore with an almost flat 20% DPM increase if you shoot and pen HE
10. What do you do about premium tanks which have HESH as their main feature, talking about EBR, Senlac, HWK, KanJagdpz 90mm etc.? –RagingRaptor

• The more I played the double barrled tanks the more I am looking forward to the changes of people constantly spamming special rounds. But I still just dislike that there are a lot of things missing, like proper weakspots on tanks. Also one thing I really dislike is that now we got to learn all the HP and damage values again for standard rounds. Also I really dislike the changes to the HE, that normal HE rounds do not have any pen anymore!

1. 1. Vehicles of tier VI and above removed from the tech trees will not be part of the collector’s vehicle, however they will remain in the game and be available in others ways that we will disclose later. As to which vehicles exactly will be removed we can’t say right now but you will be able to find out for yourself on Monday.
   2. The point of the new balance is not to make the stock grinds longer or shorter however you might find them more or less pleasant depending on balance changes. However that doesn’t mean it cannot change in the future in a different update.
   3. HP changes should also affect artillery and we are not looking to make them more or less easy to one-shot compared to the current balance. However if this happens we will be able to see it when the tests start.
   4. Actually I’m not sure if Arty keeps their penetration or not, sorry about that will try to find out.
   5. We are already waiting on an answer whether other paramaters besides shell will change besides shells, will share with you guys as soon as we know more. Also keep in mind that AP is now meant to be most effective against heavily armored targets that are generally big and slow. Also it will have very high penetation so should not be bouncing.
   6. We realize that changing all the vehicles at once represents a huge challenge and we are prepared to do balance changes if they prove necessary in the updates following New Balance.
   7. As far as I know changing vehicles armor models is not part of New Balance, however that does not mean such changes are not possible in the future.
   8. Xp earned will also be adjusted as well, you should be earning the same amount of Xp as previously or maybe slightly more but not a lot more.
   9. How strong glass canons will be depends also on how the HP buffs will impact them, you will be able to see how effective they are for yourself when the tests start. Of course we will also be keeping an eye on their performance.
   10. For tanks that use HE shells as a fundamental element of gameplay, we tried to adjust their shell characteristics in the new system in such a way as to maintain the same average efficiency. Almost all High-Explosive and HESH shells with the new mechanics cannot penetrate armor. HE shells, which in the old system differed from others due to their higher penetration values, now do more damage as compensation.
   

1- What happens to all the Experience used to research all the vehicles “removed” to the Collection? Do we get it all back? 2- What is the plan for higher tiers removed? And why remove Tier X vehicles? 3- We had a similar situation with maps, were some werent converted to new engine and were removed. This had a negative impact in the game, aren’t the developers worried that “removing” vehicles of Tier X and mini branchs will have the same effect? What was the point of creating a mini branch for the AMX 30, just to have it removed now? What is the point of removing the T62A/113 and letting players decide what they want? –Harkonnen

• -empty feedback-

1. For now there are no plans to get the experience back
2. People who already have these vehicles will keep them. For now there are no plans for how they will become available in the future but we will share more as soon as we can. Now our goal was not the remove a tank specifically (tier X or not) but to rework and improve the user experience of the tech trees. We want to create simple and logical branches where from tier VIII you can know what kind of vehicle to expect at tier X. So for example T-62A branches out from tier IX (so not really a branch at all) and is really close in terms of gameplay to Object 140.
3. Vehicles are not removed, players who have them will keep them and we will figure out a way to make them available down the line. Now the problem with the AMX 30 is that it was considered inconsistent with the rest of the line while still not offering unique enough a gameplay. I agree that adding things to remove them is not the best way to proceed but you should also be able to fix things if you are not happy with how they are or if the vision has changed. Of course it hurts now but the team feels that this is the best way to go forward and it does not mean that these tanks will not make a come back eventually.

That’s all folks!

Greetings,

these are the changes to IFHE and plating:

“We continue to test the modified plating for cruisers and Tier VI-VII battleships as well as the updated “Inertia Fuse for HE Shells” skill. Today we would like to tell you about the upcoming changes and the reasoning behind them.

We are going to closely monitor the impact of these changes on both the general game balance and the individual battle efficiency of certain ships. If necessary, the IFHE skill and some ships may yet be subject to additional balance corrections to maintain their efficiency.

The main goals we want to achieve with these changes:

• The interaction between cruisers of the same Tier should be obvious. For example, cruiser HE shells with a caliber of 152 – 155 mm should penetrate the armor of cruisers of the same tier without additional conditions. This will make gameplay on certain cruisers more comfortable and make the “Inertia Fuse for HE Shells” skill optional for them;

• Increase cruisers’ survivability: changes to plating thickness will make cruisers more resistant to battleship salvos if the positioning is correct;

• Use differences in armor to maintain the uniqueness of cruisers with a gun caliber of 190 mm or more compared to those with a caliber of 139 to 189 mm: the first group of ships will have a central “box” of increased armor plating and the second one will have only an improved deck;

• Maintain inter-class interaction in its current state: cruisers with 152-155 mm caliber will still not be able to penetrate the plating of same-Tier battleships without the “Inertia Fuse for HE Shells” skill.

• Rebalance the “Inertia Fuse for HE Shells” skill so that the combination of its positives and negatives affects player choice, thereby making the skill non-essential and encouraging variation in cruiser commander builds.

Changelog:

The “Inertia fuse for HE shells” skill is changed as follows:

• HE shell armor penetration boost will depend on the Tier of the ship.

  • Tier I-VII ships: +25% HE shell armor penetration;

  • Tier VIII-X ships: +30% HE shell armor penetration.

• Now the skill will reduce the chance to cause fire by 50% instead of subtracting 1% or 3% depending on the caliber. The penalty only affects the basic chance to set fire. Other bonuses, like, for example, from the “Victor Lima” signal or the “Demolition Expert” skill, will increase the chance to set fires in the same way as before.

The skill gave a sizable boost without a correspondingly significant penalty, which made it almost mandatory. The new variant will bring the efficiency of the skill back to normal.

The rule for calculating armor penetration of all HE and SAP shells was changed: currently, an HE shell will only penetrate armor thicknesses lower than the shell’s penetration value. With the change, an HE shell will not only be able to penetrate armor thicknesses that are lower than its penetration value, but also those that are equal to it. In this way, 152 mm shells on a Tier VII cruiser will be able to penetrate 25 mm plating, whereas currently, the penetration is 24 mm.

For Tier VIII – X ships with 152-155 mm caliber guns, the rule of 1/5 of the caliber will be applied when calculating their HE shells’ armor penetration. The above change will let HE shells of these ships penetrate up to 30 mm of plating on Tier VIII-X cruisers.

With the changes, cruisers with 152-155 mm guns will be able to penetrate each other’s armor without the need for the “Inertia fuse for HE shells” skill.

Changes in the armor plating of cruisers and battleships

Changes in plating will increase the survivability of cruisers: if positioned properly, they will become more resistant to battleship fire at range, because AP shells hitting at an acute angle will ricochet off the plating. Tier X cruisers already benefit from this. Meanwhile, cruisers with guns of a 190 mm caliber and higher will have their hull and deck armor increased, and cruisers with smaller caliber guns will only have the central part of the deck armor increased, which is done to emphasize the difference between light and heavy cruisers.

Detailed values of the thickness of cruisers’ armor plating are available in the table at the end of the text.

Due to the change of the rule for calculating armor penetration of all the HE and SAP shells, the plating of Tier VI-VII battleships is changed to 26 mm – so that interclass interaction remains unchanged.

Please note: the table shows the minimum plating thickness for each tier!

 “

Greetings,

here’s the new balance guys, let me know what you think in the comment section:

-Featured image by Martin Laver

Greetings,

Here’s the new in-game screenshots of the Udes 03 Alt 3:

Also here are its already available statistics:

Tier: 9

Hit Points: 1600
Weight: 30 000t
Engine Power: 600hp
Power to Weight: 20 hp/t
Speed: +50/-20 kph
Hull Traverse: 44 deg/sec
Gun Traverse: 20 deg/sec
Terraine Resistance: 1/1.1/2.2
Hull Armor: 35 / 35 / 20mm
View Range: 380m
Signal Range: 850m

Gun: ‎10,5 cm strvkan L/45 Alt 3

Damage: 360 / 360 / 460
Penetration: 252 / 284 / 53

Accuracy: 0.35
Reload: from 9.3
Aim Time: 1.9 sec.
DPM: 2322.59
Rate of fire: 6.45
Depression: -7+15

And official screenshots:

Greetings,

there are some minimal changes to the Bat Chatillon Bourrasque in the 1.8 patchnotes:

Tier: 8

Hit Points: 1 250
Weight: 12 030t
Engine Power: 310hp
Power to Weight: 25.8 hp/t
Speed: +62/-23 kph
Hull Traverse: 40 deg/sec
Gun Traverse: 26.3 deg/sec
Terraine Resistance: 0.7/0.8/1.4
Hull Armor: 40 / 20 / 20mm
View Range: 390m
Signal Range: 750m

Gun: Canon 105 mm mle 57 (D.1504)

Damage: 360 / 360 / 440
Penetration: 190 / 240 / 53
Accuracy: 0.42
Reload: from 17.622 to 21.538
Aim Time: 3.5 sec.
DPM: from 2201.6 to 1835.3
Rate of fire: from 6.115 to 5.098
Depression: -6+13

Greetings!

Okay guys, the second April Fools skin just got leaked as well!

This is the first time I am genuinely excited about a reward skin in WoT!

View also:

1.8 WoT patch New (April Fools) Tank skin 1/2