Patch 9.19 Server downtime and Changes

EU and NA announcements.

We have for you both service announcements and Wargamings rundown of patch changes. On EU then NA.

The World of Tanks servers will be unavailable on the 31.05.2017 from 03:00 CEST to 09:00 CEST due to this update.

Please also keep in mind, that due to the actualisation:

  • Clan Portal (eu.wargaming.net/clans) will be unavailable from 03:00 CEST 31.05.2017 till 09:00 CEST 31.05.2017

Maintenance will begin 1:00AM PDT (08:00 UTC) and will last approximately six (6) hours.
During this time, the World of Tanks servers will be unavailable. Information

After the maintenance has completed, please run the World of Tanks Launcher (WOTLauncher.exe) to ensure that the game client updates properly.

If you selected the option for automatic updates in the World of Tanks Launcher ensure that the game has finished updating

Due to the World of Tanks 9.19 release, the Clan Portal (na.wargaming.net/clans) will be frozen from 01:00 PDT (08:00 UTC) 31.05.2017 until 07:00 PDT (14:00 UTC) 31.05.2017.

From the Portals:  Update 9.19 Is Here

Subtitles in our supported languages are also available by clicking on the icon in the bottom-right corner.

Update 9.19 is nearly within reach—deploying on 31 May! Over the past few weeks, we broke down what’s great about Ranked Battles, the new equipment and consumables, interface improvements, and other enhancements on the way. Now, with all these shiny new features implemented, it’s up to you guys to tell us if they take your World of Tanks experience to the next level. But, hey, before you rush into battle, why not go on a quick refresher course?

 Premium Accounts & payments

Current Premium players will be credited an additional 24 hours of Premium account time to make up for the maintenance period. If you’d like to make any in-game purchases, please wait until the servers are up and running again.

Click the images below to check out some of the deeper details on each feature.

What’s new

Ranked Battles mode

We’ve all been there: you put in a stellar performance in battle but your efforts don’t necessarily pay off because it takes more than one player to win a match. This is where Ranked Battles mode comes in. In it, you’re rewarded for a great personal performance and can face off against opponents of comparable skill in 15v15 battles exclusive to Tier X vehicles. By testing your mettle in this mode, you can earn a new type of currency, Bonds, which can snag you some rather sweet prizes.

Thanks for your support and excitement around Ranked Battles thus far! With the release of 9.19, we’re entering the final stretch of the mode’s development and are inviting you to join us in the Ranked Battles Beta, launching soon after 9.19. It’s a long-awaited, welcome addition we hope you will enjoy while the team continues to monitor and optimize the experience as we march towards release. Consider this Beta a near-finished product that we’re putting in your hands to define potential future adjustments. After going over your feedback and game data we collect during Beta, we might tweak the modes functionality, rewards, and economics.

Stay tuned for more details on the Ranked Battles Beta Season (dates, rules and regulations) coming your way in a matter of days. There’s still plenty of time to refine your skills and get battle-ready. Studying the full guide on the new mode is a nice way to start.

Improved Equipment and Directives

We devised a new way of taking your vehicle’s efficiency up a notch: Improved Equipment and a new type of Battle Reserves, Directives. You can get both with Bonds you earn in Ranked Battles, mount and use in any mode, whether it’s Random Battles, Clan Wars, or tournaments. Improved Equipment provides larger bonuses than their standard counterparts, while Directives enhance mounted equipment, Crew perks and skill efficiency.

Interface Improvements

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve given parts of the UI a facelift. The “Missions” window now has a tab with the full list of battle missions for all vehicles in your Garage, another with all current specials, events, and missions, and one more where you can browse missions and specials for any selected vehicle. Finally, the “Armory” screen now lists all active special offers and sales on the “Specials” tab, so you can always find a great offer.

Small Enhancements

Many players asked for a female voiceover option, and in 9.19 you’ve got it. This new set of voice messages, called “Commander,” can be activated in the sound settings.
Along with this, some of you told us that you didn’t like having to recruit all-female or all-male Crews to benefit from the “Sisterhood of Steel” or “Brothers in Arms” perks. Now, these perks are compatible, and mixed Crews with both get a 5% bonus to the Training Level of each of their members.

As always, we want to offer a big thanks to all those who shared their feedback to help us improve World of Tanks. There’s still always more work to be done, and we want you to head to the forums and tell us about your experience with the latest update.

Full List of Changes

1. Ranked Battles

Ranked Battles is a 15v15 mode exclusive to Tier X vehicles, where the first team to eliminate the opposition or capture their base secures victory. Basically, the setup is the same as Random Battles. And that’s where the similarity ends. Ranked Battles is all about individual results. Your ultimate goal here is to put on a stellar individual performance to climb the Leaderboard, earning ranks and rewards along the way. The more successful you are in battle, the higher your rank in the special Leaderboard of the Ranked Battles.

  • Matchmaking: The matchmaker puts you in a team with players whose rank is similar to yours (±1). If getting a ±1 match would take too long, the matchmaker will loosen its restrictions a bit to get you in a battle quickly. The two teams will always have the same number of players with any given rank. Simply put, you play alongside tankers of similar ranking and have competition to match. The higher your rank, the higher the competition that you face. If the matchmaker fails to assemble the teams within 5 minutes, the Ranked Battle will not start: the player will be sent back to the Garage.
  • Progression: Getting in the Top 12 by XP on the winning team earns you a chevron, taking you a step closer toward earning a new rank. So does getting in the Top 3 on the losing team. The 1st rank will cost you just one chevron, and the higher you climb, the more chevrons it takes you to progress. The bottom 3 players of the winning team do not earn a chevron, while the bottom 12 players of the defeated team lose a chevron.
    Upon reaching the 1st and 5th ranks, you progress is saved. On top of that, after you reach the 5th rank you get an option to prove your skill on a certain Tier X vehicle by leveling it to the max. Each vehicle rank is bound to the vehicle, in which it was earned (each vehicle has its unique progression), and remains there throughout the stage. Just one exception here: the number of vehicle ranks is not limited
  • Timeline: Ranked Battles are divided into seasons. The Beta season will consist of four 7-day stages. When a new stage begins, rank leveling is reset to the beginning. The progress achieved by the end of day 7 is included in the Leaderboard. When the season ends, your results over the last 28 days are totaled and you receive rewards, depending on your final standing in the Leaderboard .
  • Economy: Along with the usual earnings per battle, you will get bonuses (сredits, consumables, and Personal Reserves) for reaching a new rank and fulfilling the special combat mission, exclusive to Ranked Battles. At the end of each stage and season, you receive crates with rewards and a certain amount of an all-new in-game currency, Bonds, which can’t be bought with credits or gold. Bonds can buy Directives and Improved Equipment that significantly boost crew skills and vehicle parameters. The higher your score for the stage and season, the more Bonds you earn.
  • Leaderboard: Each rank earned for the first time in each stage provides one point. These points are totaled over the entire season and determine the player’s position among other participants of the Ranked Battles. The player should earn a certain amount of points to take position in the Leaderboard, whereas the required amount of points increases in each following stage. At the end of the season, the leaders are selected from those who earned enough points. The leaders are divided into three leagues. The first league are the first 10% of players, they receive the highest reward. The second league are another 15% of players, they receive smaller rewards. The third league are another 25%; these players also receive rewards. The reward of the season final is the best and always higher than those received for stages irrespective of the league where the player ended the season.
  • Improved equipment: Analogy of the standard equipment that already exists in the game. However it provides a bigger bonus to the technical characteristics. Such equipment can be purchased with Bonds only.
  • Directives: A new type of single-use consumables used for increasing technical characteristics of vehicles. The directives can increase the bonus of the mounted equipment or learnt skills/perks of the crew members. A player can equip only one directive at a time. Once used in battle, a new directive needs to be purchased.
  • Badges: Players can earn Badges (new vehicle customization element) as a reward for participation in a season. Badges are unique icons that will be displayed next to the player’s nickname in battle and everyone will be able to see it. This is the simplest way to show off.

2. Missions 2.0

The visual and functional part of the Missions and Specials window underwent considerable changes within the first iteration.

The Missions tab will become available in the Garage: it allows displaying the corresponding screen. Missions are conventionally divided into three tabs: Events, Missions, and For Selected Vehicle.

  • Events: tasks that require considerable efforts (for example, marathons).
  • Missions: tasks that can be grouped according to their idea (for example, daily missions, Training Missions, etc.).

Each mission is displayed as a tile; all missions are logically sorted: high-priority missions are displayed at the top of the list. Each mission (tile) can be opened to view its detailed description. The new design of the Missions will simplify understanding of this game entity by players.

Now Specials are available as a Store menu option. There are various specials in the game: basically, the discounts for vehicles, consumables, experience conversion, etc. Each special is represented with a tile with a detailed description of the discount, its amount, and other information. All specials are interactive: specials can be used right in the game client by clicking on the corresponding tile.

3. Clan Management

The update extends clan management options. The following will be available in the game client:

  • Distribute gold from the clan treasury
  • Change ranks of clan members in the game client
  • Transfer Clan Commander’s permissions
  • View detailed statistics of clan members

4. Improvements to Strongholds

The below awards that could be received for Stronghold-related activities up to version 9.17.1 were transferred to the Special category:

  • Skirmisher
  • For Decisive Battles
  • Capturer
  • Fortress Crusher
  • Retaliation

5. HD models

The following vehicles were reworked to the HD-quality:

  • KV-13
  • Т-44
  • IS-2
  • BDR G1B
  • Renault FT 75 BS
  • Renault UE 57
  • Renault FT AC
  • Alecto
  • Excelsior
  • Vickers Mk.E Type B
  • STA -1
  • MTLS-1G14

6. Sound

Added female voiceovers. The National voiceover option was replaced with the Commander option that provides voice notifications that depend on both the nation and gender of the vehicle Commander. Thus, if the crew Commander is female, the voiceover will also be female.

7. The Tank Company Battle mode was removed from the game.

8. The Recruit Training missions were disabled.

9. Changes to the Matchmaker

We made some changes to the matchmaker to decrease the number of one- and two-tier battles in favor of the 3/5/7 system.

  • The number of one- and two-tier battles will decrease in favor of the 3/5/7 system. The change will be noticeable at high battle levels (vehicle tiers: VIII to X).
  • Most three-tier battles will be created according to the basic 3/5/7 pattern.

We will slightly tighten the requirements for matchmaking in terms of Platoons, SPGs, tank destroyers, and light tanks, which will decrease the number of battles with the corresponding imbalances.

10. Changes to perks

The Sisterhood of Steel perk now becomes Brothers in Arms, which allows mixed crews (female and male crew members) to benefit from this perk.

11. Changes to Controls

Changed the operation logic of the button that locks turret rotation: the Auto-Aim button is now used for locking the turret. Previously, the default button for locking the turret rotation was RMB.

12. Changes to Vehicles

Germany

  • Pz.Kpfw. VII: Vehicle model changed
  • VK 72.01 (K): armoring changed

USSR

  • Т-50: Changed the displayed engine power of the V-4M engine from 300 hp to 400 hp, which corresponds to the actual engine power in the game.

USA

  • M4A3E8 Sherman, M4A3E8 Fury, and M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo: Armour of the gun mantlet improved
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Patch 9.19 Server downtime and Changes

43 thoughts on “Patch 9.19 Server downtime and Changes

  1. Anonymous says:

    Brothers in arms changes is welcomed. Curious to see the changes to panzer7. Will the weak spot on the gun mantlet be removed?
    Also curious if the easy 8 hull down will be good.

    1. madogthefirst says:

      Given how they have yet to make the Easy 8 HD yet, it should be beyond great as long as they hit the mantlet. The Easy 8 still has armor behind the mantlet.

  2. good luck and god speed. Guess I’ll enjoy my time on the Asia server before this hits… hopefully WG wakes up and removes bonds, improved equipment and directives before then. If they remove those three things this patch might actually be good.

    1. BigJuicyBear98 says:

      You can get the Bonds yourself without paying WG anything. All you need is time and skill, which means you should get them no problem.

      Unless your trying to tell us your a shitter (hopefully not) and cannot get them. In that case, GET BETTER instead of whining about something that EVERY PLAYER can get by being good and playing the game.

      Go whine about the shit OP & broken premium tanks but not about this. This is a good an (extremly) game enhancing feature, rewarding the good (it willbe very good if they limit they mount on T8+ tanks)

      1. you never considered how improved equipment will negatively effect the game have you?

        Well, not point wasting my time arguing with the ignorant

      2. Panos says:

        Listen up you retarded wg marketing department fanboy. This game is f2p. If you have any idea what this means then you should know its not right to drop my tier 8 premium into a battle vs tier 10s or 8s or 9s buffed with ultra premium equipment. I dont like playing tier 10s, why should i be out of ranked battle benefits? Is this all make any sense to you retard? Ofc it doesnt!

      3. Anonymous says:

        well i want to stick with randoms but hey that choice should be taken away because to stay up to par i need to play this mode i dont want to play

      4. A Shitter says:

        The reward of being good is winning. Period.

        Don’t think you would agree that a sprinter should get a few extra milliseconds handicap to run the 200m if he had won gold in the 100m.

        There is no “rewarding” the good. This is pure powercreep disguised as attainable to everyone by locking it behind a credit draining mode. At least Rubicon was more clear about it – if you had the credits/gold, you can pay to pimp your tank further.

    2. Anonymous says:

      I’m with you dude. Inflation of numbers has absolutely no positive effect on the game. I’d say this isn’t an MMORPG, but most MMORPGs these days aren’t dumb enough to give enhanced PvP equipment as a reward.

      Consumables outside of the game that affect characteristics in game? Ridiculous. People will argue that it’s not pay to win because “EVERYONE HAS ACCESS TO IT” but that’s quite frankly bullshit. Even if a player has a tier 10 tank, the credit cost of running it is going to force them to buy a premium account and premium tank if they want to have any hopes of being competitive without dedicating all their free time to grinding.

      Time and skill… mostly the former. And guess what? Time is money, friend.

  3. Seth says:

    “The Sisterhood of Steel perk now becomes Brothers in Arms, which allows mixed crews (female and male crew members) to benefit from this perk.”

    All right, now my E75 crew will be more effective since I need just 1 more female to complete the crew.

  4. Bill grey says:

    No changes to “random” mm, that “randomly” puts 14x better players in 1x team.
    Wg need to realise, its these imbalanced battles, that cause players to not log on +leave for good.
    (as well as it being corrupt, not being acknowledged but 2gb of team screen shots say otherwise)

    1. Panos says:

      There’s no bigger bs in wot than “randomness”. Every fucking piece of this game is rigged, from mm to selectively nerfing tanks any time/day. Need proof for this? Try any derp gun on a daily basis. T49 does 900 dmg on 13 90. Noooo! T49 did only 48 dmg on 13 90. This game is FULL of SHIT and LIES.

      1. bbmoose says:

        I know it’s frustrating, but that’s just RNG you are talking about. Maybe you hit the gun or tracks of the 1390 with your T49.

        RNG isn’t necessarily bad, but 25% is just to much. The combination with the accuracy system makes it even worse.

        I feel your frustration bro, but to say the game is ‘rigged’ is a bit bold. I mean, how would they ‘rig’ your T49? I’m not an expert, but that sounds like a whole lot of programming to me.

  5. ArkanuSpirittu says:

    So when they say “removed recruit missions”, are they on about the recruit system whereby you can get yourself a T95E2?

  6. L3gionaire says:

    Let’s see what WG was thinking. Ok, not enough people playing tier 10 because of the credit bleeding. (credit bleeding means more premium tanks to buy). So what shall we do ? We put those ranked battles only for tier 10 and with significant rewards. But what do you have to do to get those rewards ? Be very good in every season. That means firing a lot of premiums in your tier 10 vehicle. That means even more credit bleeding. QED

    1. Doowlax says:

      @L3gionaire – hahahhaha best post here.U totally said the entire truth.Cant say nothing more,u said it all.

    1. Jurrunio says:

      Yes it’s still there. What changed is that auto aim and turret locking use the same key. E.g. if you customized the key for auto aim to be the K key, then so is the turret locking key.

  7. Melifleur says:

    Just waiting the 45 Days till Acc is deleted. Wot is done for me.
    First the threat of a youtubestrike against sich foch
    Now the lying video telling us there are no OP Prems.
    Now even more players who shoudnt will rush to tier 10 because Bonds 🙁

    Had some fun in wot now its time to move on.

  8. Nevermind says:

    I agree with DeadArashi, Bonds are a stupid idea. Almost as bad as giving bonus to players for buying a flag or slogan on their tank. Most players on SEA play like asshats, they do not need any help from WG. I have never been more happy to wait a week or more for a patch.

  9. Anonymous says:

    German speaking People in the Forums to More than 90% Don’t want and of this – and WG keeps saying they listen to the community, seriously?

    I was really excited about the Ranken battles, but Force People to Play it is just wrong, i only played one battle because of 9.18, seems i keep not playing as long as you can use improved stuff in randoms.

  10. Tank Company Battle Mode removed from the game ?!? For a Tier-10-only mode that has controversial rewards. Don’t care that much, going to War Thunder, which at least has a good aircraft game and a better ground game. Maybe someday World of Tanks will be improved, but not for a long time. Case in point, the one thing people want is more and better maps, yet all we get is maps removed.

    1. how is it a nerf? SOS has the exact same benefit as BIA but you couldn’t previously mix and match crew and have BIA/SOS be active, so if you only had one or 2 female crew you’d never get the benefit of SOS, now with it being BIA you can just fill the rest of the slots with Male crew members with BIA to activate it.

    2. pixywing says:

      It’s actually a buff as having 3 female crew members is completely useless in your Russian tier 10 medium, now they are actually useable.

  11. WhiteBaron777 says:

    Honestly people are overreacting about improved equipment. The improvements they give aren’t significant enough to tip the balance of the game heavily into the favour of those who play ranked. An advantage, sure, but no more advantageous than a prem consumable

  12. Anonymous says:

    Rigged is a business model for WG. Such a shame that this wonderful game has been broken for greed. As long as new players come in to the game nothing will change for the better…they will just bleed them dry, we the more switched on established players will see a MM designed to bring up new players to 50% WR, makes them keep playing and +50% players down to 50% (need to play OP gold or OP prem tanks to keep the stats up). Remember this is a PC program with coding nothing is truly random, that bounce, strange miss or low roll that would have killed the red is by design.

  13. Kulingile says:

    ————————————————————————————————————-
    “The number of one- and two-tier battles will decrease in favor of the 3/5/7 system. The change will be noticeable at high battle levels (vehicle tiers: VIII to X).”
    ————————————————————————————————————-

    I don’t think anyone has been having problems with queue times – I certainly haven’t. Personally, as a decent player, I’d rather have matches where everyone is on a more even footing than have 1 in 5 matches where I can easily kick butt, and then almost 1 in 2 matches where I’m stuck bottom tier trying to carry my team. Bottom tier is no longer anywhere as near as bad as it used to be, but you can still get stomped by the top tier tanks – IS-3 vs Type 5, Pershing vs Object 140, etc.

    So why would WG make this change? Some might suggest that this was an effort to increase gold ammunition consumption by adding bottom tier tanks to the match, who will spam gold at the top tier tanks. However, it seems to me that WG is trying to increase how much of a “hook” this game has by giving each player an opportunity to be a decisive factor in the battle and rack up an amazing score every fifth game. That rush you get after a great game is what keeps people coming back and playing another battle, and now they’ll get that rush at least every 10 games.

    How long have you stuck with a loosing streak, waiting for a good game? I’ll bet that it was longer than 10 games.

    While this is at first glance a good move financially as it encourages player retention, it is going to end up irritating the best players because they will have a harder time influencing the outcome of the match when bottom tier. These players are a major market for premium time and tanks. As a member of a top 100 clan, I can say that almost every one of our players has a premium account, and our members own an average of 11.13 tier 8 premium tanks. This figure only includes tier 8 premiums that have been available for sale. I expect most of the other top 100 clans have similar statistics, meaning that the players in the top 100 clans have together roughly spent $500,000 purchasing premium tanks, and spend $965,000 per year purchasing premium account time.

    On average, that’s an income of $1,100,000 per year coming from the best players on the server. It’s hard to calculate the income from new players purchasing tier 8s and premium time, but WG’s effort to increase their “hook” will have minimal impact on them anyway, because a player who jumps straight to tier 8 is going to get wrecked, get frustrated, and quit after spending only perhaps $60 on the game. Compare that to an experience player who will has spent an average of $890 on the game so far, and will continue to spend an average of $187 per year on the game.

    I think Wargaming would be better off making sure that they retain their higher level players who provide a steady income than trying to slightly increase how often the average (and below average) player feels a rush by winning a top tier battle.

  14. Anonymous says:

    It was stupid to change Turret Lock from RMB to be tied to the auto aim function. Why change something that is not a problem?

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