Continuation of the Q&A with Kayi4ek and Miloš Jeřábek (click here for Part 1):
What caused the changes to the Foch and FV215b (183) branches?
– Regarding Foch, it was a machine that is very difficult to balance. So we decided that it would be easier to make a brand new tank, leaving the old AMX 50 Foch (155) to the players.
Concerning the Deathstar, it is very simple. If you look at the branch, you will see that Tier 10 had nothing to do with the rest of the tanks of this tree.
Most of the changes are made precisely for these reasons. We want the gameplay to be similar at all tiers of a certain branch. One of the first modified branches Maus line. Many not very experienced players were confused when they moved from a “well-armored cushion” to a Tier 10T with a rear turret and really only well armored at the front, and then to a heavyweight tank with a turret in the middle.
Why aim, if RNG is just going to determine where the shell will fly?
– We believe that without a random number generator game, the game would not be at all fun. It’s not a linear thought (like the more randomness percentage the better) but without some potential for randomness, it would not be fun. If you look at the range of aiming, then you have an 80% chance to get to or near its center and only 20% will get you to the edge. You probability actually to get to the very edge of the circle 2-3% of the time.
Many fights end in 3 minutes with a result of 15: 0 and 15: 3. Are you going to do something about this?
– We are analyzing it now. It’s true that the number of 15 to nothing defeats grew by 5% in 9.18. We were a little afraid of this, but it was because people were not used to the new balancer. At the moment, the average duration of the battle is approximately at the level of 9.18, i.е. 4-5 minutes. We now think how it is possible to make fights longer, but there is as yet no solution. A skill balancer will not affect the duration of a fight.
Interestingly, this is due to the number of cardboard tanks and Auto-loaders. This was one of the reasons why we divided them into classes in the new balancer so that he would put the same number of tanks of each group in each team. Now we are watching how this affects the duration of the battles. It also depends heavily on their tier. High-tier battles generally last much longer, while at low levels end very quickly.
What about preferential balancing?
– We know that this is one of the biggest problems of the current balancer. We realize that Tier 8 is very problematic, while Tier 9 works almost without problems. We would like to make balancing at all levels the way it is now for the Tier 9s. We will not touch the preferential tanks for the time being, but we will approach this topic in the next year, 2018. Despite this, we can say that, in addition to problems with 8 and some shortcomings with Tier 6, the balancer now works better than before 9.18 and many players are happy with it.
Why not have +1/-1 matchmaking?
– +2/-2 adds a lot of variability. In one battle you are in the top, in the other – at the bottom of the list. If you only have 3 tops in the team, they do not affect the outcome of the fight so much and your tanks can be fought with from below the list. This is much better than having 14 tops and 1 lower tier.
We are constantly working to improve the balance. We divided the medium and heavy tanks, we divided the tanks into groups, for example super heavies and auto loaders. The problem is that the more rules, the more difficult it becomes, and this can lead to very long queues for battles, or all battles being the same.
How much do you like forbidden mods/cheats?
– I do not like it at all, really. That should be clear, judging by the waves of bans. Some say, “Until I see the nicknames, I do not believe that you are really doing anything.”
Closing the client so that no one else can do the fashion will not help with this. A good example of this is GTA- they froze the client, and this was followed by a “Vine”, which they had to open the client just 3 days later. The community of modders is so big and strong, and they will not let us completely close the client. We will continue to fight against cheaters. How does it work? The player tries the forbidden mode, plays one fight with it, then the next day again, and then our spider network (cheat detector) catches and banishes it.
During the first wave of bans, 6 WG employees were banned – the rules are the same for everyone.
The community would accept a clean client, if there were no more cheats.
“No, I would not.” Look at GTA. They did just that, and the community turned the life of Rockstar Games into hell for 3 days until they unblocked the client for mods.
What about XVM?
– Some of our guys want to remove the XVM completely, or show the status after the battle, but not during the game, and others think it’s not bad. We would like to compare this situation with arty. There are players who love XVM and would be upset if we took it away, and there are those who would celebrate the disabling of this functionality. And we believe that there is no solution, none of the answers are absolutely correct. We are constantly thinking about whether to do anything with statistics in battle, but so far there are no plans for this (there is no compromise in WG, for example, Kayi4ek wants to completely remove the XVM, Milos believes that this is not so bad).
Why do players who do nothing for the whole game (AFK) still get experience and credits?
– Believe it or not, here in Minsk (outside the WG office) the Internet is not very stable, and Milos was disconnected two games in a row when he was playing from home. But if this happens very often, our automatic system determines and punishes such a player.
Are there plans for new game modes for low tiers? Like a Grand Battle mode for low tiers?
-We are constantly working on new modes. We thinking about what to do strongholds to further improve this mode. We had a meeting with representatives of top clans from EU and RU regions on this occasion in Minsk. They greatly helped in creating the Halloween mode. We also tried Rank Battles, designed for only Tier 10. Do not forget that both the Grand and Ranked Battle modes are in the beta stage, and we are still working on them.
If I have a very good battle I can get 1-5 Bonds. At this pace, it will take me 2-3 years to gather enough equipment.
– Bonuses are designed for TOP levels and the best players. We do not want this to be another XP or credit type reward, so you get a serious number of bonuses only when playing on TOP machines.
What about Team Battles? Will they eventually die?
Yes, they will eventually die. We are now concentrating on the Strongholds and Ranked Battles. We can also introduce new competitions, but we’re not working on Team Battles.
What can you say about the coming changes to Strongholds?
-No one of us participates directly in the development of the Strongholds. But if you look at the guys who work on them, they work very hard every day, so I can say that something new will be released in the near future.
What will be the next step in the development of Ranked Battles, after the terrible changes in the second beta season?
– I can say that we are working on the first real season (so there will likely not be another beta season). “Horrible” changes actually went fairly well. We deliberately made the first season very easy, so that the players noticed that the second season is very difficult. We preferred to go into extremes, because if we moved with small steps, it would be very difficult for us to notice the effect of these changes.
We saw that the balancer worked well, arty too, there were problems with the map rotation, and there were complaints about the complexity, but we did it on purpose. Our next step is to make the first real season somewhere in the middle, in terms of complexity (not too easy and not too complicated).
In Halloween mode, there were bots (Leviathan and others were under AI control). Will we see a PvE mode in the game?
– AI is a big step forward and it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. WoT Console have done an excellent job with War Stories and we expect to introduce PvE mode into the PC version of the game, but nothing has been decided yet.
How about tanks for Mac OS systems?
– Work on this version is carried out by an external team. Unfortunately, the number of players on the Macs is very small and the priority is not high.
What language is WoT written in?
– The game is developed in part in C ++, the servers use Python, and the interface uses Action Script 3.
What about the March of Nations?
– On the EU and RU the prizes were absolutely the same. At NA they decided to make a marathon, because the last time that the EU and RU had a marathon, in America there wasn’t. The awards were different, because the marathon and the March of Nations are completely different things. MN is based on skill. Each office decides what events to hold, in Minsk they do not decide about the “marathons” for the EU server.
Any plans to rebalance the Defender?
– It’s not going to be nerfed, it will remain as it is now.
Will they sell it again?
– No comments.
Will you sell tanks such as IS-5 or Chieftain/T95?
– Clan reward tanks will not be sold.
What will happen to tanks that were previously sold, but now no longer available?
– There are some tanks that were removed from the premium store and are now sold only on special occasions. Others will not be sold ever again. For example, Type 59 has never been sold since it was removed from the store. I can say that while I remain Director of Development of WoT, Type 59 will not be returned to the market.
Why does WG take away the boosting/climbable areas of the map?
– Because the players asked. At first, we did not consider this a problem, but soon there was a mod showing a specific route by which you could climb to a certain position, and at that moment it became an unfair advantage, which had to be removed.
What will happen to the T-10?
– This is a big surprise. There are many options for what to do with it and we are considering all of them.
Are there any plans to display hidden characteristics in the garage? Ground resistance, shot scatter etc.
– The reason that these parameters are not displayed is that even now the current stats are hell for beginners. We can’t have 50-60 different stats on display that most players don’t even understand. All these options are available, you can find them on external pages.
You know, I’d be fine with longer queues if that meant a more balanced match. The queue time right now is rarely more than 10 secs (on EU), I’d be fine with way more than that, if that is what it takes to have +1/-1. I think they just don’t want to rebalance every tank in the game, which would be needed for better MM, that’s why they try to find other ways. Still sucks.
“…Interestingly, this is due to the number of cardboard tanks and Auto-loaders. This was one of the reasons why we divided them into classes”.
Which is a lie. In 9.20.1 i had numerous matches where AMX 50B was balanced against Maus or where only one team had tier 10 HT (inexplicably a super heavy one most of the times). And if anyone wonders, they happened at a “prime time” when number of players was well over 100K per both servers.
“Type 59 will not be returned to the market”.
Another blatant lie. Right now you can buy gift boxes and get Type 59 from them. While there is effect of randomness involved (some players boasted that he got Type 59 from the 3 box package, while one Russian Youtuber was extremely upset because he got ONLY two Type 59s by opening 40-odd boxes), the “pay money – get Type 59” transaction IS returning Type 59 to the market.
In all fairness, lie is what one would expect from WG representative so i shouldn’t be too surprised here. Like CEO, like his employees.
It is the crates that are on sale and one of the potential gifts, but not a guaranteed gift. I know a couple people that bought crate bundles and didn’t get any premium tanks. One of them bought the 75 crate bundle. So technically speaking it is not a lie, the tank is not on sale, and just because you could win one doesn’t make it on sale.
Then you have a case like mine. I bought 3 crates for $5.99 and the second crate netted me the Type 59. =D RNG can be a good thing sometimes.
“– Believe it or not, here in Minsk (outside the WG office) the Internet is not very stable, and Milos was disconnected two games in a row when he was playing from home. But if this happens very often, our automatic system determines and punishes such a player.”
bullshit, that never hapened
so.. I paid 20€ on those crates and got a Type 59… so.. what did he say.. never be on sale again?
Technically speaking, the tank is not on sale. It is the crates that are on sale and one of the potential gifts, but not a guaranteed gift.
“Will you sell tanks such as IS-5 or Chieftain/T95?
– Clan reward tanks will not be sold.”
no wonder… because the rest of the comunity that isnt in clans nor intends to be in, are treat like crap, has long they pay for premium time and credits they are wg good graces but still part of the fuck up team
The mental abortion continues.
+/-1 MM is the answer to your problems, WG.
RNG is cancer.
Hidden stats should have always been visible.
Bonds only exist to get us to beta test the new ranked mode.
I call bullshit on the clan reward tanks never being sold. The M6A2E1 was just sold in the shop as well as being sold back in April.
Not a clan reward tank
Please have some knowledge of what you are talking about before you make a comment.M6A2E1 was NEVER NEVER EVER a clan reward tank for a campaign..it was a beta testers pre- purchase promised to never be sold again to new players-thats what led to the outrage when it went on sale to newer players.A clan reward tank like IS5 is different
^Vanilla client since 2013 and it’s still fun to play 😮
I personally think that ranked battles should have any kind of “gold items” disabled.
No premium ammo, no premium consumables.
That is, if they REALLY want to make it skill based.
This is because tier 10 gets super expensive if you want to stay competetive against everyone using the premium stuff. Only people with tons of credits, aka, premium accounts and premium tanks, will be able to afford continiously playing ranked tier 10.
Heck, I own tons of premium tanks and have a prem account, yet ranked was still too much of a money sink for me because of that.
I still think it’s pretty stupid that they refuse to sell the Type 59, yet keep blasting out bundles with the E-25.
I own both of them, and I would say that selling the Type 59 is fine by me, since it’s not a broken OP tank like the E-25.
If they did that, whichever team had the most Maus’ or Type 5s would win everytime
Simple solution: nerf the side/back armor on Maus and Type 5
I’m glad that I stopped playing WoT few years ago. Nothing changed, they push in to dead end even stronger.
On the other hand I observe more advertising in TV, which means that more and more players leave WoT.
What kind of logic is that?
“Are there any plans to display hidden characteristics in the garage? Ground resistance, shot scatter etc.
– The reason that these parameters are not displayed is that even now the current stats are hell for beginners. We can’t have 50-60 different stats on display that most players don’t even understand. All these options are available, you can find them on external pages.”
Please re-enable the old style tanks statistics in garage, don’t like the new “simplified” stats.
The one good thing we got out of the “simplified” stats is the damn gun left and right angles on TDS
PvE ????
Given the number of bots in every games, I think WG has already implemented it… it’s just that they haven’t realized it yet…
Btw, any idea if WG will truly go against bots and purposed afk tanks ?
… Minsk is in Russia and I’m in NA, so I doN,t rweally care about Minsk. Here we do have working internet lines… so we could get a fair treat,emt against faed players ?
“A skill balancer will not affect the duration of a fight.”
That’s debatable, about the only way that it wouldn’t is in the case of 1) a fast cap (which would be harder for the more skilled players facing each other) or 2) a bunch of seal-clubbing rerolls. I’m curious what percentage of matches end in a lopsided loss/win 15 – anything 8 and below. I’m betting that the percentage is over 70%. I’m also curious of how ther percentages break down (15-0, 15-1, 15-2, 15-3, etc). I’d bet that 15-3 is probably over 15%, which would be significant considering that each should be 6.25 when you exclude cap wins and draws but include 15-15 win/loss.
Tiering of players based on their stats/rating would be easy (something like 0-1k, 1k1-2k, 2k1-3k, 3k1 – 4k, 4k1-5.5k, 5.5k+) and then you could do =/-1 or 2 on the player tiers in MM. As players get better, they move up. Platoons could be tiered based on the highest player.
About illegal mods….. I am thinking that they are just token bans to give the appearance of trying to get rid of them. Why do I say that? Well, you can no longer report players that are using illegal mods (as noted by AgingJedi) and there are players that are openly using them on streams and not getting banned.
I like some of the garage tweaks that XVM has and hope that WG incorporates them, like; the non-elite tanks filter so you can see only the tanks you are grinding, the automatically return crew check box, the ability to set tanks as reserve (to filter them out), etc. In the game I like that you can hit Ctrl (IIRC) and see the health of enemy tanks. I can live without the player’s stats, especially if they were to add tiered player stat/rating to MM.
1. No more stats in the garage because playerbase would get confused with more numbers. THIS is the reason why WOT will die a painful death. WG is content with idiot players and adjusts the game just for them.
2. Balancer does not work. Autoloaders get matched against E100s, Maus’es etc.
The bond system is still terrible currently, that needs to be corrected. It’s currently inconceivable even for the best players to get this equipment
Still no news on the IS-4 / ST-1 changes 🙁
They are actually retarded… Only a retard would give this answer when asked about RNG. Also why buff pref mm tanks? Do you know how much profit they make cause you must only shoot gold to have any chance against the new tier 8s? A LOT! MM is broken meaning firing only gold is your only chance,do you know how much profit they make? A LOT! Come on wg funboys/employees dislike my ass down!!( I guess the majority of dislikes is from them cause bad people talk down against their beloved company)
TL/DR: sarcastic point by point tearing down of these nonsensical responses.
“A skill balancer will not affect the duration of a fight.”
Oh really? Every time I, a green player, have a team that is 5 red (usually sub 45% wr sub 500 wn8 top tiers)/4 orange/3 yellow/3 green (maybe 1 blue or a purple) fight 3-5 purple/5 blue/the rest green (maybe they have 1 yellow or red bottom tier) it’s a blowout. So that quote is straight up cow pies.
How much do you like forbidden mods/cheats?
– I do not like it at all, really.
Ok then why isn’t this cheater the 11AD commander banned?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkdgOGzKmQM
T-22 Meds were “earned” via cheating. Why aren’t these tanks nerfed into oblivion and/or the tank locked from play? Why aren’t the 6.5M credits taken away? Why aren’t the female reward crew locked and unavailable for play?
If I have a very good battle I can get 1-5 Bonds. At this pace, it will take me 2-3 years to gather enough equipment.
– Bonuses are designed for TOP levels and the best players.
Yes top players need even more of an advantage. I suggest RNG should be based on win rate and damage per game this will make it even more fun for skilled players. It will also eliminate gold spam b/c it’s only shot from “derpy guns” like the 0.38 accuracy one on the Obj 430. Yes, a purple player in the current top clan on NA actually said the 430’s gun is “derpy” so he had to shoot gold.
What language is WoT written in?
– The game is developed in part in C ++, the servers use Python, and the interface uses Action Script 3.
++and the code is written by drunk chimps b/c all the 500+ m blind 1 shots by KV-2 tanks is perfectly legit and Soviet trex r stronk!
Why does WG take away the boosting/climbable areas of the map?
– Because the players asked.
Please eliminate climbs from Mines…..
Are there any plans to display hidden characteristics in the garage? Ground resistance, shot scatter etc.
– The reason that these parameters are not displayed is that even now the current stats are hell for beginners.
Because then we’d be called out on even more BS like aim time values being incorrect.
It’s not a “sarcastic tearing down”. It’s pathetic and even more stupid than some of the answers in this Q&A. Please stop.
“Kayi4ek wants to completely remove the XVM, Milos believes that this is not so bad”… Why do I get a strange feeling Milos is the worse player out of the two?
XVM has added a lot of useful things to the game in the past and continues to do so, but displaying player statistics mid-game is utter bullcrap. Tier 8 matchmaking is already difficult enough without constantly having to be focused by some top tier sh*tter. There is no reason two artilleries have to keep a broken Pilot 1 with 200 hitpoints left pinned down behind a mountain, while a Type 5 Heavy is out in the open looking at birds… And while I understand focusing less dangerous vehicles simply because the players are blue/purple rarely contributes to their team winning, it’s completely ruining the experience for the skilled player. It’s literally punishing players for being good…
If you only have 3 tops in the team, they do not affect the outcome of the fight so much and your tanks can be fought with from below the list. This is much better than having 14 tops and 1 lower tier.
Or you could just do 15 tops. Playing in a tier 8 against a tier 10 super heavy isn’t fun. Playing as the top tier isn’t fun either as I can boardside in my E100 and not get penned deal 4k damage and play the entire match braindead while trying not to fall asleep. I play video games for challenges not to for this. 15v15 tier 10 only are my favorite games that happened on World of Tanks as everyone was in their best tank and actually stood a chance.
If they are 14 top tiers both teams its hard to all of the top tiers of one team to be shit BUT when they are only 3 its easier. And if 10 out of the 14 are crap those 4 can win the game. If all 3 top tiers suck its game over… And dont start on how a well coordinated attackof tier 7s can kill a platoon of type 4 heavies while your leo prototypes hide behind arty (true story)…. everyone plays for himself… And not being top tier like ever sucks..
You know what will lengthen the battle times? If you fucking buff the hp across the board instead of shitting out one premium after another with bazilion alpha. Goddamn monkeys.
And yeah, rewarding only the best players to make them even furhter ahead of the rest of the playerbase is an excellent idea for a game that pretends to do “esports”.
Is mental disability a major requirement when applying for a job at WG?
RNG is the single biggest enraging thing I encounter regularly when I play. I can accept bad players, run away teams etc … but when I place my shot carefully and wait for the bloom to settle etc … and zing it goes into the dirt or where ever it wants that’s enraging. Second only by smacking the crap out of some tin can and seeing it flash from the hit – BUT magically NOTHING happens to it. Which gets OLD fast.
RNG needs to be tightened up, it does no good to let bads live longer through an artificial balancer – because they DON’T learn there decision was a bad idea. Because you LET them survive it.
“while I remain Director of Development of WoT, Type 59 will not be returned to the market.”
So he resigned or was sacked already ?
Or is he saying that all the new Type 59’s were given away in free reward boxes for doing in game daily challenges ?
No he isn’t they all were received in exchange for CA$H !
players asked to remove boosts – I didn’t and loads of players mountain goating didn’t – that was one of the best bits of the game – but of course you cannot do it in a heavy and only heavy tanks matter nowadays.
I do not use XVM – but platoon with one who does and hear – “We are gonna lose this one ” so often – why ?
Cause our platoon of top Tier tanks has a COMBINED WN8 of 900 vs theirs having an average of say 1500 that combines 4500 about 5x as good.
If XVM can work that out why can’t WG ?
Climbing? One of the best bits of the game? Literally all good streamers on EU and NA was always saying that climbing/boosting is bad for the game and always mocking tomatoes who saw guides on YT and decided to try “OP positions” for themselves. Were you living under a rock, my dude?
As for bonds meant for only top tiers …. we all have to grind for ever to get there so we are all second class for trying?
I “won” a Tier 7 battle in my Hellcat. Got >3000 damage, a defender , a Radley Walters, a pascucis . a Hi Cal and a Top Gun , did 9 kills and 6 were virtually on my own – we still had an arty left until I took out the last 3. For me it was a great battle – vbaddict tells me it was worth 18500 WN8 rating.
Then I played a Tier X only battle and did almost nothing – we won it though, my WN8 was probably about 200 for it.
Which battle did I get the most bonds from ?
Well it was 6 from each if I remember correctly !
But in the Tier 6, I made credits in the the Tier X I lost credits.
WG wants me to play all Tier X so I can spam gold ammo and pay for a premium account to carry on doing it – so don’t give me this crap about rewarding better players.
I can’t understand how they assume that playing with rng raise the fun…
how hilarious… so we like shots from 10 meters in the side going nowhere? We love to not hitting the oneshot enemy for several times? Or on the other side – we feel to be a skilled player hitting a miles away tank in full speed? For me – no – I don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3OB-sPT2E
I also don’t think that wg does enough against illegal mods. I don’t believe that they are banning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkdgOGzKmQM
Actually I think that again more of these awful aimbots are in the game. Modules or crewmembers hit on and on and on… from always the same players – or is it only rng and I should feel fun???
Big laugh to the argument about the mod-free client compared to GTA.
First of all – you didn’t try it – 2nd you would never hear to the community – if this argument should count – you should have rollback 9.19.
Also funny the assumption, that skill based mm wouldn’t change something. Well – there is no more winchance shown in xvm (lol) but I have a nearly 90% chance for a correct forecast of the game just by looking on the players stats.
You wouldn’t get games like 15:below 5 on and on and on, if the players are similar skilled. What about a test on the testserver?
The only reason why I play wot this time is, because I spent much time (and money) in it.
Both is reduced to a minimum… but I still play the game, even when it’s only for a few games a day until it pissed me off again… which probably comes faster these days.