Sandbox Return

Hello,

The WoT Sandbox servers are now back as promised and this is what you can expect:

Besides creating a better gameplay to slow armoured vehicles they…

  • Revised shot distribution within the aiming circle
  • Tweaked penetration loss over distance mechanic
  • Reduced excessively high alpha damage of high-caliber guns
  • Balanced the underpowered 120 mm guns by increasing their alpha damage

There will be 2 phases:

  • Phase 1: Armor penetration and accuracy mechanics; normalising damage values of overpowered and underpowered guns
  • Phase 2: All-round work on artillery

 

Let’s get it into detail…

ACCURACY SYSTEM: Revised shot distribution within the aiming circle

“The reworked system makes hitting weak spots at range more difficult for guns with bad dispersion (0.4 and up), while aim time, armor, and gun stabilization become more important.

With fewer shots clustered around the center of the aiming circle, the number of “unbelievable” shots (hitting weak spots without taking full aim, or on the move or at great distances) is reduced. This also increases the overall survivability of well-armored vehicles (and their ability to bounce rounds):

  • Faster-aiming vehicles with decent dispersion cement their role as effective long and mid-range warfare masters
  • For less accurate guns, or when firing with high dispersion, the chances of successfully “snap-shotting” a target at long range decreases

The aim of this change is to balance tanks with either high alpha or high DPM.

Today, tanks that rely on DPM (standing and shooting) have a disadvantage. They have to stay at the line of fire and expect to get shot at in return. But this isn’t as frequent with high alpha damage vehicles. They can get out of cover, quickly aim, fire, then return to cover relatively risk-free.

We’re trying to make these types of tanks equally viable—compared to now, where a battle with alpha strikers doesn’t feature much action, and a battle with DPM dealers is chaotic and mostly unpredictable.”

DAMAGE SCALING : Revised Alpha Damage

“Currently, vehicles with very high alpha damage (the JagdPz. E 100, FV 4005, or FV 215b (183)) foster artillery-like gameplay and outperform other vehicles in their tier, thanks to downright devastating alpha damage. It won’t make your winrate increase, even if you’re shooting Gold rounds, but it’s enough to obliterate the target and hurl an unsuspecting player back to their Garage. However, long reload times also leave these tanks defenseless for an uncomfortably long time if you miss.

At the same time, the T57 Heavy, T110E5, AMX 50 B, Kranvagn and others with a 120 mm gun deal 400 alpha damage. Just compare it to 440 of 122 mm guns: the 2 mm difference in caliber results in a 10% reduction in damage.

To better balance these two groups of vehicles, we are:

  • Reducing high-caliber gun damage per shot, while also improving their reloading time
  • Scaling 120 mm gun damage to the damage rating of 122 mm guns; the reload time on all affected tanks was increased to keep their DPM intact

These are two delicate issues, and the changes we are making are just one out of a few ways to set the things right without replacing tanks or totally rebuilding them. They look good on paper, now only you can help us check if they really work.”

Tank Changes:

T57 Heavy

  • AP and HEAT shell damage increased from 400 to 440.
  • Magazine reload time increased from 25 to 28 seconds.

T110E5

  • AP and HEAT shell damage increased from 400 to 440.
  • Gun reaload time increased from 10 to 11 seconds.

FV215b

  • AP and APCR shell damage increased from 400 to 440.
  • Gun reload time increased from 8.7 to 9.4 seconds.

AMX 50 B

  • AP and APCR shell damage increased from 400 to 440.
  • Magazine reload time increased from 30 to 33 seconds.

Kranvagn

  • AP and HEAT shell damage increased from 400 to 440.
  • Magazine reload time increased from 35 to 39 seconds.

PENETRATION MECHANICS: Penetration Loss Begins at 50 meters

“Penetration values of AP and APCR shells begin decreasing at 50 m (instead of 100 m), and they lose 18% and 23% of their initial values at 500 m.Changes to the way these rounds lose their pen power at range can facilitate action-packed, close-range engagements and make armor thickness more relevant.

It will be difficult to soften up targets at range—you’ll no longer have the penetration needed to get the job done. This then forces you to get up close and trade punches. Solid armor paired with smart angling to increase your relative armor thickness, will leave you undamaged while your opponent smolders.

We tested similar mechanics during the first Sandbox iteration, but that was a much higher penetration loss over distance, as well as other changes that diluted the experience. Now we’re trying a more focused test with different values.

A lower penetration loss over distance means a less pronounced impact on the battlefield, but we think we found a good balance. The revised mechanic will encourage heavies to shorten the combat distance while still not allowing them to behave recklessly.

Yet with all our internal tests and models, we can’t reliably answer the most important question: “Is it fun for our audience?” Therefore, we’re asking you to help us.”

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That’s all for now folks, we will keep you updated!

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Sandbox Return

169 thoughts on “Sandbox Return

  1. hmn says:

    Open your wallet when this is implemented if you want to keep playing. More misses and more pen loss over distance means less income and more often running a deficit, to say nothing of the fact that it encourages far more gold rounds to be used. This is a real scumbag move by WG, and I doubt anyone but diehard, most likely paid, shills are defending it.

    1. Your comment is really open to the get good retort. Premium rounds are kind of like picking your nose, you don’t need to do it but it might help you breathe easier. It is also frankly so disgusting that you can’t buy premium rounds on the sandbox. I suggest you give standard rounds a try instead of dipping into your wallet like wargaming gave you an excuse to pick your nose.

  2. gundam says:

    they can nerf ap/apcr all they want, as long heat keeps it’s pen at all distances it will be OP.

    they should really nerf heat as well

  3. Honcho says:

    Well, this might mark the end of light medium tanks like the amx 30 and leopard 1, they rely on long range damage and usually get rekt in cqc.
    Buffing 120mm guns will make 105mm guns look even worse in comparison. I would have prefered a nerf to 122, instead of buffing 120mm.

    Making it easier for heavies to get into the corridors, will make it very hard to carry a game in everything other then a heavy tank with small weakspots.

    1. On the other hand, it is also more difficult to hit the amx 30 and leopard 1. They got a pretty substantial armor buff so to say just like any other tank.

      as for 120mm it wasn’t me who had pointed this out but it was always weird that 120mm guns which were 15 calibers bigger than 105’s did only 10 more damage while 122mm guns that were 2 mm bigger than the 120 and 17mm bigger than the 105’s did 40 more damage. I think there is a pretty fair argument to nerfing the 122mm instead of buffing 120’s but it also was a nerf to the 120mm’s because now their reloads stop them from trading with tanks that have 105’s and any other gun as easily as they did in the live server.

      That is true but the game is less corridor like because it’s harder to hit tanks that go outside of corridors. Can’t forget every tank uses accuracy and not just for shooting heavies.

      Very fun comment to read dude ^^b some guys have been getting pretty hostile over chips and scraps so I wish you good luck and happy tanking!

  4. Oleg Ouyantsev-Syu says:

    Those idiots are at last all set to bury the game. Okay, “let me bid you farewell – every man has to die”(c) Dire Straits

  5. Anonymous says:

    wargaming going full retard, this is imbecilism 101 like the 1st sandbox, it’s pretty much the same, nobody wanted those stupid changes in the previous one, nor does anyone want this crap

  6. The accuracy and penetration nerfs serve two purposes in my opinion:

    1. WG wants to neutralise the skill of good players even more and make the game more appealing for complete idiots (~90% of the current playerbase) by dumbing it down to a mindless close range arena shooter.
    Idiots spend more money and ask less questions,the future development of the game and the pathetic attempts at “balance” will become much easier for WG.

    2. WG wants to force players to waste more and earn less credits by missing or bouncing the majority of their shots, thus they will progress much slower and need to spend much more real money on the game to negate the effects of these hideous changes.

    Some moron said to me once – “But hey, they need to put food on the table!”
    This is not about making a living anymore, they are a 1.4 BILLION US dollar company for fucks sake.
    This is all about insane greed, about extracting as much money as possible from their loser sucker cash cow players.
    And in return for our money they take a big fat shit on our face with every new update (or rather downgrade).

  7. Huguenot says:

    I have seen comments (albeit in the minority) that the accuracy nerf will affect few tanks at higher tier and people are making too much of it. However, if one examines the stats for quite a few guns in game (looking at you, American 76mm), they have at least .40 base accuracy. If this change is global, imagine trying to grind through tanks like the D.W.2…or having a T-67 unable to support the advance effectively.

  8. Anonymous says:

    WGing needs to reduce ammo costs or increase credit earnings to offset the credits losses due to more non penetrating shots.

  9. 427Arbok says:

    “Scaling 120 mm gun damage to the damage rating of 122 mm guns; the reload time on all affected tanks was increased to keep their DPM intact.”
    *Meanwhile an IS-4 cries into a pillow*
    ““The reworked system makes hitting weak spots at range more difficult for guns with bad dispersion (0.4 and up), while aim time, armor, and gun stabilization become more important.”
    *IS-4 is now crying into a bowl of pillows filled with cornflakes. Little sister ST-I joins in*
    “It will be difficult to soften up targets at range—you’ll no longer have the penetration needed to get the job done. This then forces you to get up close and trade punches.”
    *A KV-4, a King Tiger, a Comet, a Panther, an AMX 13 75, and an AT15 join them. The group proceeds to drown themselves*

    Seriously, these accuracy changes only benefit tanks that always get up in the enemies face, like the IS-3 or the pre-9.17.1 T110E5. If they want to make DPM and harassing fire more viable, that has to come from the map design, which, right now, happens to favor exclusively tanks with high alpha, good frontal armor, good mobility, and strong turrets. Brawlers, assaults, whatever you want to call them. They rule the current meta. That’s a problem. If you try to reduce the range of engagement, you only play into that, thereby making the problem worse.

    One of the most surprisingly effective buffs in recent memory was the accuracy boost the King Tiger got a while back, giving it one of the most precise guns of its tier. This enabled it to, on maps that could accommodate it, extend the range of engagement to make its armor much more effective while being able to nail targets of its own consistently. It and similar machines, like the Jadgtigers, the Chi-To, the Conqueror, the Panther line in general, the AT-series, the Toaster, the Nashorn, and most of the tanks in the French tree, all rely on range to perform effectively and exploit what they offer.

    Not only that, but defensively-oriented tanks, like much of the KV/IS-4 line is composed of, as well as other examples, like the Maus, T95, the Black Prince, and the aforementioned Jadgtigers all depend on range to prevent them being overwhelmed and outflanked. Meanwhile, harrassers and flankers, like the Comet, the AMX 13 family lights, and arguably several German and Japanese tanks need the assistance of range to help them get around their foes.

    In other words, RANGE IS GOOD!!!

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