From the WoT EU portal and at the very end a link to the Sabaton gig at the Player party. Some of this has been covered here before but this is the official transcript.
Live Q&A with the World of Tanks PC and Console developers
Remember when we asked you for your questions for the developers at gamescom 2017? Slava Makarov answered the most important ones here at the Player Party. After that, players could ask him about the future plans for World of Tanks in a live Q&A session.
Questions & Answers
Maps
Will there be new maps, or only reworked ones? Will we get bigger maps for Random Battles?
Yes, new maps are coming, but first we are finishing the work on HD quality maps.
What about boosts and climbs? Some of them are supposed to be removed with Update 9.20, but some players can still abuse them. Is this going to be fixed?
We know that in some cases those ‘climbs’ significantly affect battles. With Update 9.20, we’ll close lots of passages to zones that should not be accessible from our point of view. We are continuously analysing your feedback and our map statistics to get this issue under control.
Vehicles
Are you going to introduce the Sturmtiger in the future?
Currently we are not working on this vehicle.
Are there any plans to change SPGs? For example a limitation of only one per team?
We don’t plan on having even more restrictions for SPG in Random Battles. However, in Ranked Battles there will be one: a maxmium of 2 SPGs per team.
Will there be multi-nation crew trainers like in World of Tanks Console? For example a German tank captured by Soviets that can train crews of both nations?
Maybe, but at the moment this isn’t something we’re working on.
Are more customisation options planned for tanks, for example more skins, emblems, self-made emblems, etc.?
Yes, this is something we will introduce in the future.
Now that you’ve introduced the Pudel as the first Polish tank, is a Polish tech tree coming in near future?
Currently we’re working hard on the Polish tech tree. However, it’s still too early to share information on how or what it’s going to be like. As soon as the tech tree is ready, we’ll release it on the Supertest and share the information with you. Stay tuned!
Do you have plans to introduce the Japanese tank destroyers at some point?
We have collected quite a lot of information on Japanese SPGs and tank destroyers and are now processing this information. Right now, it’s way too soon to speak about introducing any of these vehicles to the game. For now, the Polish tech tree has a higher priority.
Any plans to improve dated Premium tanks (IS-6, Type 59, WZ-111, 112, etc.) in the future?
As for Chinese Premium heavy tanks, they have already been sufficiantly improved with the most recent balance changes, which is confirmed by both the players’ feedback and statistics. As for the vehicles with preferential matchmaking, we’re working on different solutions on how to tackle this situation, but we haven’t made a final decision yet, so please bear with us.
Economy
The introduction of Bonds has been very controversial. How do you see their influence on games by now? What are the plans for the future?
It might have come across at the beginning that Bonds are exclusive to Ranked Battles. However, this is not the case. As we mentioned before in our official articles, we plan to make Bonds accessible for normal players as well – we do not want to force anyone to play Ranked Battles. With the release of Update 9.20, Bonds can be earned via Tier X Random Battles and the new Grand Battles mode.
Any improvements to the reward system for Ranked Battles?
Currently, we plan to change the reward system in a way that you will earn more Bonds by getting into higher ranks at the end of each stage. This way, you can earn a considerable amount of Bonds, even if you don’t place in the seasonal leaderboard.
Game Modes
Will you improve Ranked Battles with a better score system, longer seasons, and different leagues?
We are currently working on improving the core functionality of this game mode first to make it well-balanced, and appreciated by our players. Nevertheless, we are also working on creating league concepts based on Ranked battles. At the moment, it’s too early to share more information just yet. If the concept is good enough for release, you’ll find all the information on our website.
Will there be different battle modes for other Tiers than X?
Yes, but right now we’re focusing on end-game content first.
What are your future plans for clans and clan wars?
The development of the Global Map is one of our top priorities! We have collected your feedback about the Global Map, and based on that, we’re introducing improvements for this game mode. Actually, many of those suggestions have been already taken over for the upcoming 6th season, starting on 28 August.
After the season ends, there will be a huge Clan Wars event with new mechanics, currently set to the end of November. Keep in mind that this date can change. The 7th season, coming next year, will differ significantly from the 6th, and we’ll also try to implement the best ideas from the player base.
Aside from the Global Map, we are working extensively on improvements to the Strongholds game mode. For example, since 24 August, it’s been possible to earn Industrial Resources in Random battles with Tier X vehicles.
Will there be more training opportunities for new players?
Of course! For example, we’ve introduced the Boot camp with Update 9.19.1, which is a massive improvement compared to the previous tutorial. Once we’ve analysed those statistics, we’ll introduce more updates on this new mode.
User Interface
Any plans to add more filters for the carousel, e.g. three or more rows, a filter for non-elite tanks, or more custom filters?
Yes, we’re working on this.
Will there be more information available in the garage on tanks’ parameters, such as terrain resistance or gun stabilisation?
Yes, we plan on introducing this in the future.
In World of Warships you are able to choose your favourite port. Will something like this ever come to World of Tanks, choosing your own garage?
At the moment, we don’t plan on introducing this.
Other
We feel that developers don’t listen to criticism, complaints and suggestions. Please explain what other factors play into the development of new content.
We do listen carefully to your opinions and your feedback and try to implement them whenever it’s possible. Aside from the forums, we are actively communicating with contributors and bloggers to get the most recent feedback from our players.
Will there be a system in World of Tanks like in World of Warships, giving daily containers for received XP to encourage playing the game?
Currently we don’t have such plans.
At the moment we feel that battles end too fast and become one-sided, such as 15:4 after 4 minutes. If that’s the case, can you share statistics on changes to battle results and times over the last updates?
While we obviously cannot share the exact data and statistics, we do confirm that this fact is true. We are analysing those statistics and are looking into solving this issue.
Will you introduce a new set of personal missions?
Yes, new personal missions will be introduced in the future, more information will be disclosed closer to their release.
Aside from that, World of Tanks Console fans could ask our American developers what’s coming to the game in another live Q&A.
Additional activities
- Talks with the Community Team: Of course, the German Community Team was there and were available for nice chats and discussions with the players.
- GIF boxes: A small booth, in which pictures and GIFs could be shot.
- T-Shirt booth: Everyone had the chance to get their very own Player Party T-Shirt here.
- Arcade machines: Playing classic games with friends.
- World of Tanks with HD maps: Who didn’t have a chance to test them at our gamescom booth could check them out at our dedicated game stations.
This seems to be only PC things. :/
This was my response when reading this Q&A on the forums:
“At the moment we feel that battles end too fast and become one-sided, such as 15:4 after 4 minutes. If that’s the case, can you share statistics on changes to battle results and times over the last updates?
While we obviously cannot share the exact data and statistics, we do confirm that this fact is true. We are analysing those statistics and are looking into solving this issue.”
– This is a very interesting comment. I openly mentioned this once (the forum topic might still be floating around somewhere and was also published on RSR) and was ridiculed for it by many players. Yet now, even WG confirms this happens.
“Any plans to improve dated Premium tanks (IS-6, Type 59, WZ-111, 112, etc.) in the future?
As for Chinese Premium heavy tanks, they have already been sufficiantly improved with the most recent balance changes, which is confirmed by both the players’ feedback and statistics. As for the vehicles with preferential matchmaking, we’re working on different solutions on how to tackle this situation, but we haven’t made a final decision yet, so please bear with us.”
– People always seem to focus on the popular tanks for some reason. What about tanks like the Excelsior and the FV201? Those were already underpowered when they were introduced and it hasn’t gotten any better…
“TIER VI AND VIII VEHICLES ALWAYS SEEM TO BE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TEAM LIST. ANY PLANS TO FIX THIS ISSUE?
We are continuously working on the new matchmaking system, and yes, there will definitely be fixes to it in time. As the entire mechanism is quite complex, we need to address every issue separately and introduce those improvements step by step.”
I call bulls**t here. I just come back from my EU Support ticket, they said that there is no problem with the matchmaking and the battles on such tiers are just working as on any other tier. Plus “we are sorry this feels unfair to you”.
So, is it Slava bullsh**ing the people, or is the the support?
They should just undo the changes they did with the mm in 9.19. In 9.18 tier 8 was fine. A lot of single tier and two tier games. In 9.19 they’ve changed that and since then Tier 8 is a fucking pain to play. It’s not complex, they are just being stubborn as fuck.
“Currently we don’t have no such plans.”
So you do have plans?
“At the moment we feel that battles end too fast and become one-sided, such as 15:4 after 4 minutes. If that’s the case, can you share statistics on changes to battle results and times over the last updates?
While we obviously cannot share the exact data and statistics, we do confirm that this fact is true. We are analysing those statistics and are looking into solving this issue.”
Here is an easy fix, introduce player tiering based on their Player Rating to MM with +/- 1 or 2 tiers. That will reduce the chance of new players that bought a premium tanks or rushed up the tiers having to face good players that have lots of experience. It would also reduce the amount of seal clubbing at lower tiers. Basing it on number of battles played won’t work because of rerolls, bots, and the fact that there are just some terrible players with lots of matches under their belts.
“We feel that developers don’t listen to criticism, complaints and suggestions. Please explain what other factors play into the development of new content.
We do listen carefully to your opinions and your feedback and try to implement them whenever it’s possible. Aside from the forums, we are actively communicating with contributors and bloggers to get the most recent feedback from our players.”
recently comes to mind ichase, now this seems too familiar , wait , let me remenber, sirfoch, circonflex… all this happen this year, so the still say they listen to our feedback REALLY???
WG: Yes we do, just look at our not using Grand Battles results for Marks of Excellence. Just ignore all the other criticism, complaints and suggestions we ignore.
Matchmaker is really easy to fix….just switch to +/-1 …. way easier and they dont have to failbalance so much tanks… you can also limit the amount of prem ammo, because no one needs too much of it anymore
That won’t fix the problem, there will still be a lot of 15:1,2,3,4,etc matches because you will still have an imbalance of player skills.
Weill then reduce the mm team imbalance. Since WG is already fond of +/- 25% RNG for penetration and damage calculations.use a similar approach to team experience. For example limit the imbalance in the total team XTE metric (or for each tier within a team) to +/- x% so you don’t end up with current scenarios where you have some unicums on one side versus nothing but tomatoes on the other side. This would would reduce the type of rofl stomps that happen due to team experience imbalances alone and increase the number of more closely fought games.
So unlike a mm solution where you only pair players of a certain experience against others of similar experience (Team Battles) this is a pseudo random mm that puts a limit on team imbalance versus the current random mm where team imbalance is unlimited.
The MM needs to take into account player skill. its the only way MM will ever be anything like equatable. as it stands a platoon of supers will run ram-shot in any game and if they are in top tier Super HTs you might as well drive for the water.
Yeah, that’s a terrible idea. If you balance the teams with skill based matchmaking, then you make it so that the better your good players are, the worse the rest of the team is. Every unicum has to be balanced out by half a dozen tomatoes.
It was one of the big mistakes that Armed Warfare made.
It’s a very bad idea.
If you’re wanting only players of similar win rate to face off, then it’s something unsustainable.
You make it so that people with a 60% win rate have each other, then their win rate will trend towards 50%, as must be the average for a game where half the plays win and half the players lose in every match. (not counting draws)
If you split players to leagues, and do MM within leagues, skill won’t be such an issue.
There are better things to determine skill than WR.
Sadly this issue applies to all WG games, and lasts since years.
So they cant finish the Polish Tech Tree for what ever reason, but the sell a Premium German clone any way…. This seems like a great new marketing idea,or gross incompetence. Maybe that is why people are changing jobs. Im just saying….
They simply said they havent finished the Polish tech tree to a point that they feel satisfied.
Only someone that does not play at tier VIII could say that MM is working ok…
BTW I WANT MY IS-6 MONEY BACK AND U CAN TAKE THAT POWERCREEPED MM F***** PIECE OF S*** AND STICK IT IN YOUR GREEDY ORIFICE
THANK YOU
That crushing blow when you don’t see your question appear or now labeled as not important.
In my opinion I’m excited to see japanese Tds and spgs and italian tanks as well