Good day everyone,

A few days back WG Console held a Live Q&A session on Twitch with Creative Director TJ Wagner and Lead Game Designer WG Chuji (henceforth known by his first name, Jeff) here’s a transcription of that (as best I could, there were some audio issues).

Could you explain how map/game modes work? There are rumors that not all maps are in the rotation at any given time.

Jeff- Well, technically thatvis accurate. The way it works is that maps are divided by tier and we try to make a lot of the maps appropriate for the tier range that you’re in. One of my favorites is Provence, and if we tried to do a Tier X battle there (though I’d love to try it) you’d pretty much have the entire enemy team spotted in the countdown.

So because not every map supports every tier or game mode, they are also a bit divided by tier range. I don’t remember off the top which maps are divided by what, but that is how we do it , so you are kinda correct, they are divided by tiers.

 

Will we get maps like Pilsen, Paris, maybe even Berlin?

Jeff- Um, stay tuned, we’re working on a lot of cool new maps. Stuff we’re talking about and also maybe stuff we’re not talking ababout in this current question.

 

Console exclusives?

Jeff- Perhaps…

 

What happened to the US Sexton I going on sale? I guess it got balled up in the current store issue.

Jeff- So, there is a team here, the Events Team that in partner with publishing handles what goes on sale and when. What the development team does is make sure that all these maps, tanks, modes etc. function. So I don’t know what happened to the Sexton I, we can look into it.

TJ- One thing I want to clear up, Sexton is going sale on Monday, the 3rd.

 

What will happen when the Waffle gets replaced by the Grille?

TJ- Nobody reads, it’snot being replaced. The Grille is just being added to the tech tree.

 

Can you clarify why?

TJ- Its based off experimentation. When we started off initially, when we got versions of the servers removing tanks and replacing them just like PC did, then we changed to removing them but making them premium for those that had them, but still taking out of the game. This meant that players new to the game would be like ‘’But I want a chance to get that tank”, so in this case we went with just adding the new takes to thet tech tree, because the others are still very viable tanks and it’d let players still earn them because they’re legendary.

 

Will the B C 25t AP come unlocked with all modules unlocked for those who unlocked everything on the Lorraine. Like on PC?

TJ- No, it a new place in the tech tree, so it has to be researched.

 

So will we ever get the Lorraine as a premium Tier 8?

TJ- No its staying in the tech tree.

 

Is the HMH M51 the same as the M4 Revolrisé?

Jeff- No, its modified, it has a diffirent suspension, I don’t remember which off the top of my head.

 

Why did you decide to go for the M51 instead of the Revolrisé?

TJ- I can answer that, it was my idea. The theme of the month was ‘’Heavy Metal’ and we wanted to do something diffirent from the flag tanks and some of the brightly colored ones, so we went with war-torn, having some historical aspects to them. Looking at the Rev, that was adapted and used by the Israeli army, so we thought that would be a good take. Thought it’d be a good way to introduce Israeli tanks in the game. And we can always introduce the Ravioli in the future.

(DN: No, thats not a sign an Israeli tree is coming to console. Raibot01 confirmed when asked that it is French)

 

Some players have suggested adding Italian tanks into the other tech trees.

TJ- Yeah, I saw that. I thought it was a really good idea.

 

Could it open the door to an Italian tech tree?

TJ- Possibly. If PC adds an Italian tree we can add it along with how we’re adding other nation tanks now.

 

When can we expect the T95 buff from PC to come to Console?

TJ- Don’t hold me to this 100%, but that should be coming in the next update. We updated some other tanks, I just don’t have a list in front of me.

 

Jeff- That sounds right, we look at all the changes that PC does and we’re inhereting and compare them with how tanks in our ecosystem are doing and then make the call on a per tank basis. This tank gets this, but doesn’t get this, we’re going to add this. I think that is on the list but I don’t recall.

 

Why was the Lorraine excluded from the upcoming On Track, and can it be included?

TJ- It wasn’t included because its not on the way to that tank (BC 25t AP), it’s parallel to it. It can’t be ‘on track’ because it’s not on the way.

 

How about small Personal Missions for things like permenant camo?

TJ- So we’re just now adding the ability to give or sell camos that can go into an inventory you can aoply to ant tank youbwant. It can work with emblems, inscriptions, camo. Maybe even equipment one day.

 

Will there ever be universal camos added, ones that can be applied to all tanks, regardless of nation?

Jeff- No plans for that right now.

 

Can we get a mercy mode with arty? Reducing one-shot probability?

Jeff- Is it an arty balance question? ‘’I don’t like getting on hit by arty. Fix that”? It’s kinda similar to the T95 balance question earlier, we do look at all of the balance. I do acknowledge that getting one-hit by anything, especially by arty that you don’t know where it’s coming from, can be frustraiting. We know that the PC team is looking into it and we’ve been looking into iy as well, but there’s nothing I or TJ can tell you about “One-hit will go away when X happens”, its just something we’re looking at and seeing what the solutions might be.

 

What are you going to do to support tournaments?

TJ- So initially on Xbox One we’ll be launching tournaments in mid-May with the Arena feature on Xbox One, we’ll be testing in mid-April with our partiners at Microsoft and ESL. We’re hoping to also have user created tournaments as well. So a lot coming in mid-summer.

 

Can we remove the tier restriction on Liberty Falls?

Jeff- Sure. We can raise that and try it.

 

Will we see more tech tree premiums?

Jeff- Um, the tech trees get pretty crowded, but there’s nothing really stopping us from adding premiums. Some of the ones we’ve been researching are designed to be sold through the store so people can get that cool stuff and then wait for the next time they’re available. I don’t know if we have a specific roll out of premiums for the tech tree any time soon.

 

Swedish tanks?

TJ- Later this year.

 

Gifting gold or tanks?

TJ-Thats really high on my list, but it’s something that has to be dealth with back-end on the portal and its fighting with other features, but it will be coming.

 

When is the T26E5 Patriot coming?

TJ- We were just talking about that the other day, because we have the Freedom, and it’s kind of like the Freedom. We’re trying to decide what to do with it, we don’t have any plans for it.

 

How about a monthly ladder for clans?

Jeff- We were talking about clans. We have a lot of features like ranked battles and the tournament features that TJ was talking about. We’re not really focusing on clan specific elements for that kind of competition system, but making clans more attractive is something we’ve been talking about.

 

Can we get a sniper-mode turret lock button, now that we have horizontal stabilization?

Jeff- We should do that. That’d be a great engineering test.

TJ- I think we have a ticket on that.

 

Any chance of getting foliage and wiggly bits as purchasable add-ons to tanks?

TJ- Well, we had the wiggly bits, I didn’t think about foliage. Guess that could be a wiggly bit.

 

Camo nets?

TJ- Hopefully when the wiggly bit attatchment point thing figured. I’m hoping we can do that.

Jeff- It’s hard getting that to look good on every single chassis. You may have noticed they all look radicaly different, and that net would fall differently. When we get it to where it doesn’t have to be custome for all 500 tanks that could look awesome.

 

Will players have to pay for equipment/consumables in tournaments?

TJ- Yes

 

National Crew voices?

TJ- They’re coming.

 

Will you have Strongholds like on PC?

TJ- Maybe someday. Everything this year is based around tournaments and ranked battles, E-sports.

 

Is there a possibilty of adding a feature that tracks maps played.

Jeff- If you haven’t quit out, it’ll so you in the log with your defeats/victories. Though it is somewhat manually done. Honestly though, I supsect its just being asked so someone can check the map frequency. We do monitor that on our end.

 

Replay feature?

TJ- We’re implimenting a full server side replay feature.

 

Regarding arty changes:

TJ- It’s my hope we can switch over to the new arty view mode from PC. We originally wanted to launch on the 360 that way.

 

Can you keep the stun mechanic on PC?

TJ- Thats my current plan. I agree.

Jeff- You may see a grin on my face too. I have nothing more to ad on that…

One of the things we’re worried about is, well- we all acknowledge that getting one-shotted from sonething you can’t see can be frustrasting, you might throw the controller. What I’m worried, and what the design team is worried about is that the arty who used to be supporting his team and blowing up enemies is now going to have less efficacy, because he’s just stunning them, and the people getting hit… It could be concievably worse because its basically just having a dead controller while the wolf pack blows you to pieces. It could be that everyone has less fun. We’ll have to see how it works out.

 

Server side reticle?

TJ- it’s not the same thing here as on PC. That’s why it hasn’t been implimented.

 

Will we ever get the Cromwell B?

TJ- We already have to many Cromwells in the game, so I always put it down on the TBD list.

 

Any new Japanese tanks?

TJ- We have one that we’re saving for a Japanese holiday in the summer.

 

Adding 9.18 changes?

TJ- We do upgrade to server versions from the PC. 9.18 is barely in PC supertest so we wait til thats done before we move up. Then we take and add any applicable features. We’re really interested in the matchmaking changes. Maybe we can impliment some of those before we get to 9.18? But we have to wait til those get out into the real world and see how well they work out.