This is going to be a Monster. Thanks to DoM1N for collating  the questions with relevant answers.

EU
Question:
Will there me more tier X cosmetics like the ones we got in the Christmas boxes? They are a great way to monetize the game instead of op premium tanks.
Answer:
Yes, we are working on many more of those, you will see quite soon

Question:
Considering how some older premiums have already received buffs (Pz 58 Mutz, STA-2 as the latest examples) is there anything planned to say amx CDC, T34, Löwe and so on? These tanks are surpassed by a lot of tanks in their performance and statistics already, like comparing the Progetto M35 46 and the CDC there’s really no contest, or T34 to any other high alpha heavy tank.
Answer:
We are constantly working on actualizing premiums to current meta game. Currently we are running sandbox tests of new balance for all tiers and vehicles. Whatever the outcome of the tests is: we will balance all the vehicles up to a new scheme. If it doesn’t go to prod, we will do a balancing up to a current scheme.

Question:
Nobody likes to have 3 arty in one battle. Are there any plans for reducing the max number of artillery pieces in one match?
Answer:
With current MM we are trying to make sure that 3 arties battles as well as 0 arty battles happen with predictable regularity. No plans to change the limit from 3 to 2 at the moment.

Question:
With the new ammo changes introduced, are we going to see the super heavies with non-existent frontal weak spots (cupolas/lower plates) added weak spots to them?
Answer:
If new balance changes to ammo and HP goes live, we will have to look into all the vehicles and their behaviour in the new meta. We cannot give a definite answer at the moment.

Question:
Are there any plans to reintroduce 9.22 maps which were removed in 1.0, such as Pearl River and Swamp?
Answer:
Right now, we are looking what maps should be next, Pearl River is one of the candidates.

Question:
Thanks for the Chance. My question would be regarding Supertest. At the moment it is very one sided with only Russian players. Will there be a chance we get once again a Supertest with tankers from different nations? It could lead to more balanced tank and less of the so called ” Russian bias” and might sooth the community a bit. Over the last couple of years Supertest info’s went from ” Someone had to be a mole and leak the info” to WG straight up posting almost all new things on their forums themselves.
And as a follow up question. When the Supertest would open up, will WG allow for example YouTubers and Streams in to let them make videos and opinions on it? I like what the Sandbox server is doing in the sense of that it is basically a no-NDA environment, and everybody can see what is going to happen to World of Tanks.
Kind Regards
Answer:
As you probably know, our main production force is based in Minsk, Belarus. And lots of our employees with limited English skills. So, it is much more effective to organize and support ST in Russian language. However, we understand that we definitely need to hear voice of community, thus we have different testing instrument. Supertest is used more for our internal tasks. As for SB, we use it lastly to test major changes that affect all the regions and players, you will see quite a few SB launches this year. For example, wheeled vehicles were tested on actual production servers.

Question:
Are you planning on fixing invisible textures on edges of terrain, rocks, buildings etc. that make you peek a little more when wanting to take a shot behind them? They are transparent but shots don’t go through them. This problem has occurred since introduction of HD maps, and since hasn’t been resolved.
Answer:
Definitely yes. There is a problem with matching Havoc body with our terrain. We are working with Havoc team to solve it.

Question:
Since now all the tank models were ported to HD can we expect an in-game armour model viewer for the game like it’s in WoWS or in that other tank game?
Answer:
This feature is in pipeline.

Question:
Have you ever considered a separate class for super-heavy tanks (Maus, E 100, Japanese heavies etc.)?
Answer:
We do not consider to make a separate class for those. However, we understand that these tanks are different from other heavies, so Matchmaker has special rules for those tanks, and we are working on communication system improvements that will allow players to tell allies „Achtung! Maus!” much easier than it is now.

Question:
Since WG has teased us with changes to E-100 line, it is implied that changes to Tiger 1 and Tiger2 are in sight. What kind of parameters of said tanks does WG plan to change? If you can’t answer that question, at least tell us how soon can we expect the rebalancing of the E100 branch. Don’t touch E-75. It’s good as is. 🙁
Answer:
Currently we are running sandbox tests of new balance for all tiers and vehicles. For now, we are holding back some changes, but definitely will apply them when new balance appears. Or in case it does not go live, we will make them to current scheme.

Question:
Now that Type 4/5 Heavies got rebalanced and are far less toxic to the game, are there any plans for a tier VIII Japanese heavy premium?
Answer:
We are researching other JP branches, however no plans for tier 8 heavy so far. But thanks for the idea;)

Question:
Is there any chance serious action is being taken against bot users soon?
Answer:
We have a system that detects abnormal behaviour based on server data. So, we have two ways at the moment: continue to do periodical ban waves or just close the client for any modifications. The latter is quite effective but can be compared to decapitation to cure a headache. So, we are sticking to the first way for now.

Question:
Do you consider adding a mini-map indicator for flipped vehicles for allies to know (and help)? Maybe the F7 ‚Help!’ command could be changed to ‚Help, I’m flipped’ when the player emitting it is flipped.
Answer:
This is in plan for communication system improvement.

Question:
Question: Regarding new player retention: Have the devs thought about splitting the low tier player base into two parts? 1 newbies and 1 veterans up until Tier V-VI? You could use battles played for the requirement to become a veteran and when there is a time period when the newbie player base is low you could add bots to fill up their battles.
Answer:
It actually works like you described already – new players are playing only vs players under 100 battles played in total. this system is quite old, and we want to improve that, maybe by adding more special rules to Matchmaker.

Question:
The forums contain lots of interesting material, from new branch proposals (leggasiini’s IJA TD line & HT rework) to new maps (grizly1973’s Arad, Ghioroc and Warsaw proposals). Are the devs using the forums to get any kind of information or they’re there just for players to change opinions? To me, it looks like the feedback from the forum is very rarely, if ever, taken into account.
Answer:
We are working with many sources of information and forums are one important of those. We have a weekly digest from forums gathered and pay a lot of attention to it. As for the tech trees, we try to rely on hard evidence like actual archive documents, letters and other historical material only. As for the maps, we have a lot of prototypes inside, however not all of them are getting even to Supertest stage. Our level design team reads forums as the rest of the team.

Question:
Is the WoT timeline now expanded from the mid 60’s to the mid 70’s, since the release of the Swedish mediums? If yes, will it be possible to bring new German tanks, since the Germans had a „development gap” in the 50-60’s?
Answer:
We try to operate not within the period but more within a certain tech stack (up to the spread of composite armour, smooth barrel guns, automated fire control systems etc.) due to it completely changes the tank battle paradigms. New German tanks were designed in this new paradigm.

Question:
I just recently got harassed in game (physics abuse, in frontline, for more than ten minutes). The support page for EU says even physics abuse is handled by the in-game support system – which has an abysmal reputation. On US, this problem is not ignored by support, according to what’s known on Reddit. How does the support system for in game reports work? Can and do support staff review replays? What actions are taken? On a side note: physics abuse and inactivity are especially harmful in frontline, where there is no way for the own team to punish the player themselves (I do not condone team killing, but at least a joint salvo by the team would solve the problem, temporarily). The report system and the disastrous new player experience are my main problems with the game.
Answer:
We are sorry to hear about this situation. Support teams for all regions review of the replays, however definitely not all of them. We are constantly trying to make things better both for players and support team by introducing more automation tools (ex. Vehicle Restoration tool which allowed to restore more than 1 vehicle per year like it was before). During the last year we had experiments with Friendly Fire (Frontline and Ranked Battles), so we are planning an update to in-game support system after friendly fire changes will go live on all servers.

Question:
What are the plans with IS-4? Is it getting reworked, or maybe replaced in near future? Recently got back into game and I feel so bad about the state of IS-4.
Answer:
If the rebalance we are currently testing on Sandbox goes live, we will see whether it needs any tweaks

Question:
Have you considered taking steps for real balance in all tiers, for example with frequent patches only making small incremental changes each time?
Answer:
That is why we are running Sandbox balance experiment which in case of success will be a single whole rebalance.

Question:
Is it part of some idea/meta design new tanks stronger than ever? For example, impenetrable monsters like obj.279 and chieftain. Why don’t you just do reasonable buff to forgotten tanks like E100? And why does it take so long to make adjustments? Btw. add more checkboxes to ban maps – at least 6, Cheers 🙂
Answer:
All the tanks that we introduce have their weaknesses and a part of design is to make players find and use those. For example 279 does not have lower plate, which means that over its tracks it has gentle belly, just go figure how to use this tip;) In case rebalance experiment which we run at the moment on Sandbox goes well, we will definitely give some love to all vehicles, E100 included. As for the maps, we picked the number of slots to banned maps to make sure all players are getting as comfortable Matchmaker time as possible.

Question:
Why are recoilless rifles, high tier auto cannons and small calibre smooth bores such a no but tanks that’s have insane amount of armour and agility (430u) is fine?
Answer:
This is no for a reason: new tech makes all current tanks obsolete without exceptions. For example, a late 16th century knight in full gothic armour was a king on the battlefield at some point, but a rifle has kicked him straight out of a saddle. So yes, 430u is a powerful vehicle in its habitat, but in a smooth bore guns world is not that useful.

Question:
Is there any chance of WG working together or at least helping out the developer of tanks.gg? Since the game was ported to the new engine the dev at tanks.gg has issues properly exporting the armour models of tanks. As the site was helpful before, it would be nice if it could work properly again.
Answer:
Well, that’s weird since the new engine did not touch models. We will try to get more info on that case. Thanks

Question:
Bonds shop (vehicles for bonds) you promised us at the end of 2018, why was it delayed and when is the ETA?
Answer:
The functionality is ready, however during the test stage we’ve encountered some tech issues and are currently fixing those. Stay tuned for the updates.

Question:
Will there in game Finland tech tree?
Answer:
If we get enough content to compile at least one full branch not being formed from clone tanks, we will definitely introduce it. Sorry to say, but we do not have any evidence of an original Finnish tech tree existence.

Question:
Would it be possible to make Girls und Panzer styles and emblems, for example for the StuG III Ausf G? As far as I know, WoT Blitz has a few GuP premiums, so there shouldn’t be any copyright issues, right? GuP is what got me interested in tanks, and therefore brought me to WoT, and other people as well probably.
Answer:
We are negotiating to continue our cooperation with GuP brand and if everything goes right, sure we will do that.

Question:
Will it be possible to meet the devs and chat with them at the WG player party during the gamescom? Like it was possible in 2017.
Answer:
Yes, we are packing our bags already. Will see you there soon!

Question:
Will there be an additional British heavy line with Chieftains as top tiers?
Answer:
Not planning to do that.

Question:
The new iterations of Frontline differ significantly from the original, partly because it has been turned into a grind among other factors. During the first episode of frontline players played just for fun, there was no penalties for losing, not big rewards for doing great either. Ranking up would accelerate the exp gains, but since people were having fun, they didn’t really care about having to play for longer. Frontline gain a reputation for being the place where you could enjoy all of your power-creeped tanks and just relax.
However, in the new iterations that’s no more. The original variety of tanks have disappeared, most players run a small selection of overpowered tanks. On reddit there are frequent post shaming the players who dare play the supposed objective, as well as many reports of people deserting whenever they don’t spawn in the most profitable location, people artificially extending won games….
Is this drastic change in frontline towards a less casual-friendly, more grindy game intentional? Are there any plans for trying to bring back the old relax and fun gameplay of frontlines?.
Answer:
We are looking into the health of FL mode and we did not plan it to turn this way. We will definitely make changes for the new season in 2020.

Question:
NINTENDO SWITCH. I recently bought a switch and it’s been fun for traveling or just chilling in bed or when I am away from my PC in general. But WoT is my favourite game and I’ve been waiting and wondering when will we be able to enjoy WoT or WoT blitz or WoT mercenaries on the Nintendo Switch?? U guys said if the switch sold you would bring WoT to Switch. The System sold 🙂
Answer:
Since we are not Blitz team, we cannot make this call, it is better to ask them.

Question:
Do you have plans to introduce more tanks (not necessarily whole lines) for single line branches like Czech, Italian or Polish?
Answer:
We are quite proud of the fact that we made it possible for those branches to make it to the game at all. And that’s quite a challenge to add more branches there.

Question:
Handmade (like current painting) 3D customization or only predefined skins?
Answer:
In nearest future we are limited to predefined skins only, this system appeared to be quite complex.

Question:
Tier 9 premium as a Front Line or Ranked reward – do you consider something like this?
Answer:
We have already announced that both FL and RB will get Tier 9 tanks as rewards.

Question:
Are you planning to bring back T-22 medium? As a CV reward tank, buy for bonds, marathon, mission reward or black market?
Answer:
Mm. Thanks for the idea, we will consider this option =))

Question:
Any plan on improving/upgrading the game menu. It looks really „old/washout” if you compare it to the WoWs for example.
Answer:
When we introduce an update to a feature, we usually update the UI for it, so eventually, all the interfaces will be updated with time.

NA
Question:
Wargaming should remove the retraining cost for tech tree tanks from Tiers 1,2,3 and 4. When new
players start a new account they get a 100% crew. That’s great… except you only need to play tier 1
1-5 games. Tier 2 don’t last very long; Tier 3 takes a little longer. Tier 4 takes a decent amount of time.
At that point it is worth it to keep the same crew from Tier 4 to Tier 5. I was trying to help a new player
understand the crew system (Their crew was 81% in the tank); after helping them understand they
decided it was best off to just quit because they don’t have the time to invest in doing that. P.S. The
Crew system is bad, and it will be until next year that we hopefully get a change/revamp.
Answer:
We promised to rework entire crew system and we are working on that. The new system contains solution to this as well as many other issues with crew

Question:
With the addition of map blacklisting, is there any data being collected around what maps are commonly blacklisted and any possible correlations, or interesting information you can share? Or potentially if data is being collected if it’s being used to help inform any changes to maps or the game?
Answer:
Yes, we are using this as data source. We are also conducting surveys from time to time and were quite puzzled that many of the blacklisted maps actually were on top of maps from the survey results. Soon we are planning to share some data with players.

Question:
Any plans on balancing Chieftain, 279e, and 907? Currently they massively outperform tech tree tanks.
Answer:
This issue is quite delicate. From one side those tanks are rewards for high-end activities, so players expect them to be quite powerful. And they are. However, one cannot say that those tanks have no weak spots to counter them in battle. From the other side, while some tanks are possessed only by top skilled players, it is hard to make conclusions that they massively outperform the others. For example, Batchat which is not quite in current meta is a powerhouse if controlled by a top skill player. At the moment we are also conducting a series of Sandbox tests to validate some new ideas for balance. With the help of these tests we are trying to find a more generic solution on how to create an attractive interesting reward vehicle that won’t feel as unfair as they sometimes feel now.

Question:
What is the current state of the revisions coming to crew mechanics?
Answer:
It is in progress. Our first take was too dramatic, and we went too far with our ideas. The following design was way too conservative, and we figured out it won’t satisfy you guys as well as us. So now, we hope we are on the right track with the changes. Stay tuned for more information.

Question:
Will tracked light tanks get their top speed back from when most of them were nerfed in 9.18, with the introduction of wheeled lights seeing how they outperform tracked lights in both p/w and top speed?
Answer:
At the moment we do not feel that tracked LTs as a class require a buff. We are currently testing our big rebalance initiative on Sandbox and if it proves our ideas to be right, it could lead to a significant change for all classes, LTs in particular. Thus, we will be able to correct the balance between tracked and wheeled light tanks as well, if we continue to gather proofs it is indeed needed.

Question:
Can we please get assistance for breaking the wheels on the race cars? Please. If my 155mm shell isn’t enough to do damage after hitting the wheel a little assisted damage would heal the wound faster.
Answer:
That is actually a good point. Let us investigate this further.

Question:
Are you planning improvements to the penetration indicator? It does not appear to accurately report penetration with HEAT vs spaced armour. Nor does it report overmatch as a separate condition/colour from penetration.
Answer:
For spaced armour this is quite a heavy calculation in real time. As far as we remember, it should work properly for overmatch, let us doublecheck.

Question:
I really like the changes made to the WOT Premium Account. However, the fact that the x3 modifier
experience increase goes to the vehicle instead of towards crew training is very frustrating, especially
when it’s an Elite Vehicle / Tier X vehicle, and you are trying to grind up the crew skills with the
‚accelerate crew’s training’ option.

I understand that you don’t want players swapping out crews, then applying the x3 bonus, but can’t you
just give us a second checkbox for ‚Premium Account: Accelerate your crew’s training with x3 exp
bonus?’, and if the checkbox is set, the XP gets applied to the crew training automatically at the end
of the winning match?
Answer:

The core issue is that this bonus might be applied way after the actual battle happened and a player might manipulate a crew meanwhile like move it, disband, etc. As we have failed to find a good answer initially, we made the bonus ineffective towards crew training. We believe we have a good solution now and we are currently working on the fix. It will go live shortly.

Question:
Might some reward tanks be made available in the Bonds shop? There are rare vehicles like the IS-5 and the T23E3 that I would very like to get my hands on, but I’ve missed out on getting in the past.
Answer:
Yes, that is exactly the idea for Bonds shop content. We had some tech issues with Bonds shop operations, so it did not go live in 1.5, however we hope to get it fixed soon and at the moment we are finalizing the first batch of offers for the shop.

Question:
Are there plans for a Japanese tank destroyer branch? They could easily fill one out and I believe it would be far less controversial than the heavy line.
Answer:
Yes, we are looking into it.

Question:
Might it be possible for some tanks to be researched by tanks of other nations? For example, might I
be able to research the British Firefly from the American M4A3E8 (at an increased XP cost)?
This might be a way to add nations to the game that would otherwise be unable to have
complete tech trees of their own.
Answer:
You have just hit a bullseye. Seems you’ve got access to one of the designs we have on the table for a while 😉 Still, at the moment we are pursuing somewhat different solution as we believe it will allow us to reach the same goal w/o making the trees even harder to read than they are now.

Question:
Any plan for chieftain mk.6 tech tree tank?
Answer:
Not at the moment

Question:
Why are some tanks so erroneously misnamed? The Object 279 (e) should be called the Object 726,
the AMX M4 51 should be called the AMX M4 49 bis, and the IS-M should be called the IS-2Sh, to name
a few. I have a post over here that identifies a lot of the misnamed tanks in the game.

Answer:
In many cases vehicles that never reached mass production or were cancelled in early prototype (or even tech requirement stage) have different names in different sources. This is especially true with experimental vehicles, like Obj 279/279(e)/726 when the same vehicle based on the archives, we have access to has changed its name several times based on document time or even origin, and some of abandoned names were also re-used later on. In any case, when selecting a particular name, we put our trust on our historians and the hard evidence we got on hands with legal means 😉 But seriously, thanks for the question and the link. We’ll definitely pass it to our guys for a double check.

Question:
I’m on of the few players who has all 3 tier 8 CW tanks, one of which I paid 12k gold for. Any plans on buffing them? I know this is not relevant to many people but the dust on my IS-5 is a foot deep
Answer:
This is something we are considering at the moment.

Question:
Upcoming tank: Will the ST-II be a replacement for the IS4 and if so, will the IS4 become a legacy tank like the Fv215b/FV215b 183 and Foch155? The tank was already leaked from the Supertest allot of us would like to keep the IS4 and also know if the ST-II is planned to be replaced.
Answer:
If ST-II and other double-barrelled vehicles will make it into the game, they will form a separate sub-branch.

Question:
What can you tell us about wheeled vehicles? What is Wargaming’s current perception of them? When might we expect more wheeled vehicles added to the game? Has Wargaming considered making them their own class (ex: Armoured Cars)?
Answer:
We are carefully looking into the data and are happy with wheeled vehicles performance at the moment. It had some issues in Frontline mode and we are addressing those. As for the new wheeled trees, it is too early to say something. However, we do not see it necessary to create a new class, since wheeled tanks have same purpose on the battlefield as light tanks.

Question:
Seal clubbing. Do you have plans on fixing it? I’m not referring to seasoned players who just started grinding a line but to those who already have higher tiered tanks on the same line playing on lower tier games. This essentially discourages a lot of new potential players that will populate the game.
Answer:
We have finally got to this issue and planning to address it (relatively) soon.

Question:
When is the T110E5 getting a Buff? Why is the S. Conqueror allowed to exist today (no problem with S. Conq balance) but the T110E5 got hit with the nerf hammer so hard? The S. Conq excels at it’s designed role very well (ridgeline warrior same as E5) it has better gun handling, DPM, much better turret armour, 200 more HP and an extra 2 degrees of gun depression. As the E5 currently stands it has better mobility and slightly stronger upper plate. In the hands of equally skilled players a S. Conq would win a fight against an E5 7/10 times minimum. Is anything going to be down to buff/improve the E5 so it’s once again competitive? Realistically all that needs to be done is remove the Cupola (like blitz) or strengthen it to withstand premium round penetration at least 50% of the time, as its cupola is much more pronounced/larger and in the front of the turret. No real need to buff anything else to make it competitive again, though a small gun handling/mobility buff would make it play like a true heavy/medium hybrid. I say this in the hopes of being able to grind the line with the on-track event coming up and enjoy the E5 as it was designed to be (before it was nerfed). I do not wish or hope the S. Conq gets a nerf. Thank you for your time!
Answer:
If you recall, some years ago we strengthened the cupola and community started to ask us to nerf it, as E5 quickly becomes a Swiss army knife of heavies. So, we did. Now it is quite a solid tank, however we cannot disagree that in duel scenario SC (that was not available back then) is stronger and is also generally simpler to play. At the same time, we believe that it is not quite right to measure vehicle’s performance on duels. As you’ve mentioned, better mobility and stronger upper plate are giving E5 tactical edge in many situations. Still, we started a big rebalance initiative, that you can try out on Sandbox server, in order to find a more generic solution to individual vehicles balance issues. If we’ll get a proof that the direction is right, we would do a big rebalance sweep based on it. If we prove it’s a wrong turn, we might consider getting back to incremental changes until we’ll come up with a better generic solution. And thanks for not asking to nerf SC, by the way 🙂

Question:
I’m sure you guys get fan-made tech trees and branches all the time. What are some things you look for in these proposals? What makes for a good fan-made tech tree?
Answer:
With every tech tree at least for the past few years we are trying to reach both gameplay diversity (hence new mechanics for Swedes and Italians etc) and a certain grade of historical accuracy at the same time. The latter means that we are constantly looking for legally acquirable hard evidence (documents, photocopies, letters, military protocols and so forth) that could give us a solid ground for a new tree / branch composition. For example, it took us three years of working together with some Polish military institutions to build a Polish tree that is composed of something original, not just modernized versions of USSR tanks Polish army was using past WW2.
Now, back to your question. A good fan-made tech tree in our eyes should meet both the above criteria: be contrast enough from the gameplay POV and be based on some solid evidence that does not require our guys breaking into classified archives and James Bonding blueprints from there to obtain 😉 Still, the community efforts are often serving as the source of ideas and inspiration both for design team and our historians that do field studies across the globe.

Question:
Has Wargaming considered a combined „Latin American + Spanish” tech tree? This could be a way to get tanks from Brazil, Spain, Uruguay, and Argentina into the game, amongst others.
Answer:
We did. We believe we have a better answer now to how to introduce some specific tank variants into the game, and will be happy to present it to the community soon

Question:
Are there any materials to suggest it’s possible we might see additional tank branches for the Czech, Japanese, Italian, or Polish tech trees?
Answer:
There are some indeed, not for all the nations you’ve mentioned though. At the moment we are in progress with Japanese TDs and looking for opportunities with Czech and Italian trees as well. Once we have something solid on hands, we’ll make it public ASAP.