Good day everyone,
Here is a transciption of a WG Q&A with Miloš Jeřábek and Producer Kayi4ek with some editing and translation coming from the RU community:
Are there plans to add new Czechoslovakian tanks into the game?
– No, at the moment there are no more plans for this nation.
…but what about a Czech Tier 8 premium?
– We are actively working on this now. Our guys have already given us a couple of ideas, but we can not tell which tank and when it will be, we’re not to sure about what we’re going to go with. That said, we do know this is the only nation at the moment without a Tier 8 premium and we do want to add one!
Are there plans for more fictional themed tanks? Like the Defender for example?
– For starters, the Patriot and Liberte are tanks with fantasy camo, but the Defender’s camouflage has historical roots. At the moment, we want to continue the development of the customization mechanics. The biggest problem is that some players like pink tanks, but also a lot of people like historical skins and colors.
Therefore, there is a button to see only historical camouflage. However, this won’t work for premiums like the Patriot or Liberte yet. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to turn these off, but no promises.
This is just the beginning, depending on how these changes manifest themselves, we can continue with 3D customization. However, it also depends on the time and resources to process all of the physical tank models again, which means hundreds of hours of work.
You will do something with Type 4 and 5 and their guns?
-It’s very difficult to equip tanks like these. Despite the fact that many players say that the new vulnerable zones are not that vulnerable, we have data showing that they are weak zones. As always, we need to wait until we have enough information about how the gameplay changed for these machines since the addition of weak spots. Many players see a problem in these tanks, but ask yourself – how often do you see these tanks on the battlefield? Statistics show that “conventional” branches are much more popular than the Japanese. We understand that players are annoyed to play against them, but understand that it is very difficult for us to balance such tanks when such a small number of people play on them.
We believe that Japanese heavies do not break anything in the game. It’s very hard to play them well. When Type 5 goofs up, everyone screams that he’s an imbecile, but they do not understand how many projectiles the Type 5 driver unsuccessfully released before. Of course, if Type 5 goes to the banana road on Himmelsdorf, then none of the enemies will be able to push that direction and they will have to do something else. Look at that same Type 5 on Sand River and you’ll understand the vulnerabilities.
Removing weak spots from tanks is a new feature?
– Each tank has a vulnerable zone. Even then, there are other ways to nerf a tank, such as the speed or traverse speeds. If you see Type in front of you, then do not try to shoot with him from the front. An excellent example of this is Leviathan in the Halloween mode. Leviathan and Type 5 are actually very similar. You hear them firing through the whole map and you know that their reload is very long. If he is aiming at you, you know it’s better to hide.
We know that not all maps allow you to make a detour on the flank, but in such situations you just need to remain patient and wait for your chance. It’s the same with the new Badger. This tank is very situational and slow. If you saw it – do not stand in front of his gun, go around it. There is always a way to deal with such tanks.
We know that not all tanks were well made. We recognize that Chrysler K was not a particularly successful one. But in general, we do not remove the vulnerable zones from the tanks, this is not our method of work.
What can you say about the machine gun ports that were removed as weak spots when transferring tanks to HD?
– If you look at it from a historical point of view, it is true that when a mine or explosive hit a machine gun or a mechanic hatch, severe damage could be inflicted, but when an armor-piercing projectile hit it was almost as good as the main armor. Every tank that appears in the game is the work of many historians, so with the current HD models there is some truth to them.
You will review the older “buffed” tanks (eg Tiger 2, T-34-2, T32, etc.)?
– Required! We are almost finished with rebalancing tiers 8 through 10, because we wanted to start from the top. We know that there are many problems with Tiers 6 and 7, and we will still come to them. However, I can not say when it will be. It is difficult to do anything with the lowest tiers, as they are usually just boxes with guns, but in Tier 5-7 a lot of potential.
Could you just increase the number of HP at low levels? Thus, fights will become generally longer and players will not be annoyed at getting killed in two hits?
– Very interesting question. Though this will not solve anything. On the contrary, it can be even more annoying. At high levels, tanks are very rarely killed that quickly, and it usually takes some time to kill the enemy. We think that raising the CP as a whole will bring more harm to the game than good.
What will you do with Object 907?
– This is again difficult for the same reason – there is very little data to show what can be changed, because very few players play it. Also, since this is a premium tank, we do not think it would be good for us to nerf the tank given out to players as a reward for their skill.
E-50 M and Leopard?
– We think that the E-50 M is a very good tank, it was changed not too long ago. With its good armor and gun, we really do not quite understand why you want the tank to be changed further.
Leopard is a very strong tank, a good sniper for the second or third line. If you are the first to be lit up, you will have a hard time, but with its penetration, accuracy, and camo he is a good generalist and is very mobile.
Why Type 64 is available both through the game and in the premium store, while tanks like leKpz M 41 90 mm or AMX 13 57 can not be bought?
– The answer is very simple: Type 64 is an ordinary premium LT, while Black Dog and 13 57 were sold for special events, such as the Grand Final. We are not nerfing premium tanks for legal reasons, so tanks that turned out to be too strong are just kept from sale.
Will there be another rebalancing of the artillery? I propose of 1 per team or to remove the stun mechanic that breaks the game.
– At the moment less people are “whining” about the arty than before. There will always be people that will never be pleased with what we do to it, and will ask for it to be removed from the game, but there is a similar number of people who play arty and they like it. Most players just enjoy the game and don’t get sore about artillery. I would call this a problem without a solution, we are constantly considering new ideas and will continue to do so. The problem of limiting the number of SPGs in battle is that there will be no more fights where there is no artillery at all, and we do not want that. We do not believe that arty is a big problem at the moment, but we will continue to monitor the situation and conduct internal tests.
Are there plans to change the stun mechanic?
– Not at this moment. In Leviathan mode, players could see where the projectile landed, but we do not want to put this into Random Battles. This was added because Leviathan fired 5 shells every 10 seconds. We do not plan to change the mechanics of stunning in the near future.
Are there plans to add some tutorials: “How to Not Get Hit by Arty”?
– We are working on the training and have already improved it a bit (I think a few of you have tried it). But we are constantly working to improve the learning process for new players, in order to reduce the player drop off at Tier 2.
Will gold ammo be rebalanced?
– We know that many players complain about this. Purely out of curiosity, we looked at the statistics and the total percentage of penetrations by conventional and gold shells differs only by a figure after the decimal point. This means that approximately the same number of conventional shells and gold do not penetrate the armor. In the future, it is very likely that the shells will be changed, but we do not know how yet. Obviously, it all depends on the tank you are shooting at and your own, but according to statistics, it usually does not matter if you shoot with BB shells or gold.
Many players request that premium shells be available only for gold, but at the same time, players constantly complain that there is too much pay to win in the game. These contradict one another. Statistics also show that on RU server premium shells are used much more.
Are there any plans to reduce the price of gold shells, so that they cost the same as normal shells?
– Definitely not. That doesn’t not make any sense. Here’s what would happen – people will load only premium shells, and the standard will be useless. In the future there will be changes, but I can not say anymore.
Why does wg rely on “statistics” all the time to review things ?
They were pretty clear about it. Idk what u didn’t comprehend. Everyone bitches about the jap heavies but barely anyone plays with them. Using user feed back leads to terrible balancing b/c people r biased.
Game devs often rely on statistics because people screaming on forums are often talking rubbish and unlike the game devs they dont actually know what “everyone” does even when they say they do.
Sometimes players do say correct things. But when you want to know what “everyone” really does you don’t listen to individuals because they only see a tiny amount. The game devs actually do have all the data.
It keeps changes objective. *
*keep in mind, this is still wargaming.
The T110E5 has overpowered like 6 months… then the fuc**** statistics showed that.
JUST IMAGINE THE GODDAMN TIME ITS GOING TO TAKE THEM TO DO THE BALANCE 2.0 THING USING STATISTICS…
oooh? BALANCE 2.0 IS DEAD?
They actually introduced overpowered premiums and destroyed tier 8 balance! LOL
:..
In russia you balance game destroying it even more, comrad~
at this point I am like
«f**k the statistics»
this Q&A has made me really sick, I already knew that their priorities are severely influenced by what the russian playerbase wants, I just did not expect it to be this much
Q: will you balance OP reward tanks?
A: no
Q: is it just a coincidence that they are always soviet tanks?
A: the sky is blue
Q: was there really a need for another mini-branch in the soviet TT while other nations have way too few options and/or need to have their TTs reworked/reorganized?
A: we are always looking into new interesting additions
Q: what about this soviet tank with a 203mm cannon?
A: we always listen to player opinions, we might take a look at it
Q: but wouldn’t finishing/fleshing out some existing TTs be more relevant for the playerbase as a whole, like with the 3 smaller TTs? (Czech, Japanese and Swedish)
A: not in our plans, f*ck we don’t even plan to fix the worst TT in the game (US)
Q: but what about tier 8 premiums for those nations?
A: we are working on it
Q: what about increasing HP and decreasing DMG by 20% to end the power-creeping problem
A: the matches will become more boring if the lower tiers are learning how to play the game and the match takes long enough for them to realize that using armour, concealement and/or flanking might help them, currently it’s much more rewarding for them to reach Tier 3 in about an hour and get blasted by a concealed Tier 4 Hetzer, after being one-shoted by an inisible enemy they will learn how to camp the flag too afraid to move out
it’s not a accurate transcription of the Q&A but this is what I take out of it and what makes me sick about it, like, talking about tier 8 balance and including the T32 as if it was at any point OP, for years it has been way too UP when it gets undertiered, even when it becomes top tier in a match full of tier 8s it struggles with some tanks while most can simply aim at its hull and pen it, but one thing I do agree with, theoption of turning off costumizable cammos
” If you look at it from a historical point of view, it is true that when a mine or explosive hit a machine gun or a mechanic hatch, severe damage could be inflicted, but when an armor-piercing projectile hit it was almost as good as the main armor. Every tank that appears in the game is the work of many historians, so with the current HD models there is some truth to them.”
the poorest escuse ever fucking made to explain frontal op premium tanks they realese latelly…
if it was true there concerns about historical acuracy models then there shouldnt be premium tanks like the e-25 and others in the game, the chinese td tech tree is another example, of fake historical tanks in the game….
Perhaps nerf premium shells and make them cheaper? This has been suggested before.
Like give them higher pen but lower alpha
test
Will gold ammo be rebalanced?
Gold is fine, I understand why it’s there and I think that the simplest solution would be to simply hardcap the maximum premium shells you can take in to battle. The amount of shells would be determined by the alpha strike of the gun, for example:
750+ alpha guns – 3 premium shells
500+ alpha guns – 5 premium shells
350+ alpha guns – 7 premium shells
200+ alpha guns – 10 premium shells
ETC
In this way the driver should consider when to use premium rounds and when to save them for later.
Regarding the autoloders – premium ammo should no more than 2 clips.
Sometimes it’s so annoying to see a tier 10 medium tank driver who is using premium ammo to shoot me when I’m driving a tier 8 medium tank.. I have no armor so why the hell to use premium rounds?
I have more than 25k battles on RU cluster with 56% winrate and I don’t use premium ammo at all. It’s possible, trust me.
Problem here is simple the big difference in clip size for autoloaders (some would end up with way more, some with way less ammo. But more importantly some tanks get creat benefits from premium ammo (like t54 or type 5) for others its meaningless (most tier 10 tds or tiger 1) and others would be unplayable in current MM without premium.
Im still for the simple solution of more pen = lower damage (its better to do some dmg rather than none, but if you know how to aim and where weakspots are, shooting ap would give you an advantage) in addition to a proper rebalance of some tanks. (Oh and premium shells getting a price closer to ap of course)
sounds like a good solution I have in my tanks mostly standart ammunition some gold
but the number differs form just 5 rounds to half loadout on scouts (fast RoF, low alpha)
on the last games i played too much gold flying around u can do the same dmg if u aim right like weakspots but these idiots gold gold gold
I wold prefer option when you are able to research more types of ammunition for the tank and every kind of shell would have its specs like more damage, less penetration, higher penetration less damage, etc. It would also require changes in economy of shells and economy itself. For me it would be way to go if you would like increase fun factor and also there would be many more things to grind not only modules.
“We know…”, “We see”…, “We understand…” — a perfect company!
Machinegun ports and the keyword “historical” again. Whenever it suits them, they either throw “historical” card or rant about “wot not being historical”.
What they say about the Leopard is so full of shit. Second or third line sniper? Yeah, on which map?
It’s the most usless tier 10 medium tank in the current meta. It has the shittiest softstats and accuracy doesn’t mean shit with the current state of RNG and how accuracy works in general. Besides, 90% of the times you won’t be engaging enemies at a range that accuracy matters. That is not possible on 80% of the maps we currently have.
If there is one tank that needs a serious buff, it’s the leopard.
Regular and premium rounds only differ by a decimal point? WHAT FUCKING GAME HAVE THEY BEEN PLAYING?
Deja Vu?
“Leopard is a very strong tank” yeah right….
When the tank was introduced into the game it used to have the best acc.
Now you have several tanks with better accuracy, aim time, far far better dispersion values, way better DPM.
With the recent armour buffs to the French tanks, the American and the fucking soviet tanks; leo 1 and the E50M have been consistently outclassed and power creeped.
On VB Addict; Leo 1 has 47% average WR…. tell me that its okay and the tank is doing fine.
Assholes in the banace department of WG
Q&A be dope.
How about reducing the damage output of premium shells by about 25-50% while having the price dropped to make it only a little bit more expensive than regular ammo (perhaps twice as expensive at max.) while ditching the gold price completely?
Thus, they may have the new customization system to be one of their main sources of income as many other popular “free to play” titles have it.
Of course, the ammo capacity of every single tank would have to be increased so that one could still do at least 10’000dmg per battle, which may take way longer than it would be necessary for WG to implement.
might as well just bring all HE-100 then if they decide to do that atleast then i wont be cucked when my avg dmg is only 375 with a 16 second reload against tanks i cant flank in any way shape or form because of my speed and pen on ap thats decent now but honestly still shit because of the angles you have with how tall the tank is and how short most other tanks are while only having like -7 depression while being able to be penned in the police bar turret ring the area around where the side skirt is connected and right below that near the tracks aswell as them being able to pen you in the mantle if u angle away aswell as the police bar any which way you look your hull roof aswell because of how the e-100 is u can hit overmatch and pen the hull roof with a e5 while face hugging on even standing ground not to mention when u are slightly higher than a e-100 ground wise and then u can also pen the turret ring at that range with reg it would just be better in a e-100 with even just a 20% (with around 600 dmg i probably wouldnt use heat at all if i have a decent chance at rolling 450 dmg with a 600 dmg gun basically at that point and a 16-17 second reload im not going to waste my time) alpha reduction with the heat to just spam HE and try and do module dmg such as crew ammo rack gun fires etc and 200-500 non penning shells than a chance at a 600 roll with a 50% chance for it to do meh also fuck loading heat in a e-100 at all if it had a 50% dmg reduction im not fucking loading heat for lets say 16.88 seconds(even though i have a almost 15 sec reload) for a avg alpha of 375 i rather fire HE and potentially do a fire or something or just do 100 dmg than nothing or 281 ish.
I like the bit about the type 64: We are not nerfing premium tanks for legal reasons, so tanks that turned out to be too strong are just kept from sale.
Also I think prem rounds should definitely be changed. Either completely remove and rebalance tanks accordingly (massive shitstorm coming) or lower alpha damage with premrounds.
“We are not nerfing premium tanks for legal reasons, so tanks that turned out to be too strong are just kept from sale.”
Maybe not fair, but good. I don’t want to pay for a tank thats good now but nerfed in the summer. Free in-game tanks are from them, they can do what ever they want with it, but when you pay for something it’s yours, even if it’s just some pixels.
I may be wrong but when you pay for pixels they are not yours. Legally they still belong to the developer and/or publisher. I think it’s even in EULA. You know, the thing that no one reads before clicking the “Accept” button.
https://worldoftanks.com/en/content/docs/terms_of_service/
Section 8.2 (…) You agree that you do not “own” the Virtual Goods and that Wargaming has the absolute right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Virtual Goods in its sole discretion, in any general or specific case, and that Wargaming will have no liability to you based on its exercise of such right. Wargaming allows you to accumulate and manage your Virtual Goods, and may use terms such as “buy” and “sell” to refer to the grant or transfer of rights to use the Services. Use of terms such as “buy” or “sell” does not indicate any ownership right.
Section 8.3, paragraph g:
we do not make any promises about how or when Virtual Goods may be available and can update or change Virtual Goods at any time;
= It’s virtual, it’s owned by WG and they can change it at any time
WG, you have just been lawyerd.
I am not entirely sure what the legal situation is in regards to nerfing premium vehicles, but “because it is in the EULA” is not really a valid reason for it to be right.
I cannot remember the details, but wasn’t EA in big trouble outside of the US at some point, because they had illegal and or misleading passages in their EULA?
Many don’t read and many don’t know their rights, so pretending for it to be the companies legal right to nerf things like premium vehicles might have worked for quite well up to the point where the bluff was called.
I am all for balance and also don’t think premium vehicles should be OP – just as good as normal content, but I allso don’t think it is OK to nerf them.
That just shows how important it is that WG tests premium vehicles better than they do now and that they should not alter the game in a way that premium vehicles will get better later on (like the light tank shuffle, the removal of camo upon shooting for tds or the meta shift towards close quarter brawling that makes the inaccurate brawlers better at side scraping)
Waiting for japan TD line or Polish tanks
“Statistics also show that on RU server premium shells are used much more.” Didn’t WG say in another Q&A the reason why Defender is op is because it is difficult to balance on the different server because Russians are more skilled and don’t have a problem with defender. So basically they lied. The reason why Russians don’t have a Defender problem is because they fire more gold.
Leopard? Very Strong? It literally has mediocre dpm, no armor, view range and mobility surpassed or matched and basically extremely mediocre soft statistics (turret and movement dispersion), so its accuracy and aim time count for nothing. Ive seen Obj 140s snipe better than the leopard 1.
Sigh, for gold with higher pen than regular ammo just reduce the alpha. And I’m guessing they bounce at the same frequency because people take more chancy shots with it, aiming less as they know they effectively have a larger target to shoot at.
For the love of god please give us some higher tier British light tanks. I have a bunch of skilled crews lying around from my earlier days with nothing to do.
Can’t nerf a premium vehicle because of legal reasons, but i don’t remember the 907 being a bought and paid for premium.
I have the 907 but i really rarly play it… it is really that good?
Leopard and E-50 M are very good tank? OMG they are blind or they really don care about german line at all
“Can’t nerf a premium vehicle because of legal reasons” – unless they really want to, like with the Type 59
“… understand that it is very difficult for us to balance such tanks”
Translation: “Understand that we had no idea what we were doing when we introduced such tanks. Understand that now we have even less idea what we’re doing when it comes to balancing such tanks”.
well said!
[…] WoT Dev Q&A […]
“Type 4-5 are hard to play”, “Leo 1 would be OP if buffed”, “Gold ammo is fine”, “Arta is fine” “Weakspots, who needs them?”, “Flanking is viable”
Top-freakin’-kek. I’ve never seen so many mental abortions in one QnA session.
^ THIS.
We believe that Japanese heavies do not break anything in the game. It’s very hard to play them well.
Because pressing THE FUCKING RIGHT CLICK FOLLOWED OF THE LEFT CLICK IS SO FUCKING HARD.
There are several things that can be done with premium ammunition which would promote better game play (i.e. force players to aim their shots more and look for more flanking plays rather than press the 2 key and engage in WW1 trench warfare shot trading.
1. Lower alpha damage for premium ammo but keep the higher pen. In the case of premium HE, there may be a case to retain the higher alpha damage. If there are legitimate reasons to retain the alpha damage with There are other ways to address this described below.
2. Either cap the number of premium shells each tank carries so players have to be more selective as to when to use them or add a game mechanic similar to the speed governor consumable. The speed governor adds +10% to engine power but damages the engine if the tank is pushed for a prolonged period. In the similar manner, the use of premium ammo could be implemented to add +x% to pen but if used for a large number of shots in a short period of time could also damage your gun (temporarily disable it or nerf accuracy because of gun wear). Certainly premium restrictions affect the effectiveness of some tanks more than others since some guns need more use of premium. But that simply means some tanks need their pen to be re-balanced which War Gaming should have done ages ago anyway.
3. Reduce the experience received for damage obtained due to premium ammunition versus standard ammunition. Players who obtain their damage from using standard ammunition are generally using more skill (aiming for weak spots, flanking) than players doing the same damage using all premium and just pointing and shooting. This difference can be differentiated by XP earned per shot. It’s so refreshing to see high level players using little or no premium ammo (e.g. Zefeka [www.twitch.tv/zefeka/videos/archive]). Players like that should be rewarded for the extra skill used to get their damage.
Wtf wargaming?! So we spend our time and cash converting XP to get the Type 5 or 4 just so we can beta test them for you? Only to more than likely have you nerf the shit out of them… this goes for all tanks. What’s the point of even having a test server when the testing continues at everyone’s expense?
Leopard 1 is TRASH
i’m still FOR removing gold shells entirely. it does not promote skill and honor. nowadays it feels more like shooting bandits than at fellow tankers…
Is that at the same time the type 5 heavy is removed
no. that one is staying. don’t really see a reason to remove it since it’s supposed to be tough, and shot at by TDs no reason to have TDs with bigass pen values if they’re not gonna break the damn wall like a battering ram
RE: Type 4 and Type 5
TL/DR: We have data but we need more data. It’s viewed as a problem but it isn’t b/c the tanks aren’t seen often. We can’t use the data we have b/c so few people play these tanks.
It’s like this WG rep was dropped on his head…..
“we have data showing that they are weak zones. As always, we need to wait until we have enough information about how the gameplay changed for these machines since the addition of weak spots. Many players see a problem in these tanks, but ask yourself – how often do you see these tanks on the battlefield? Statistics show that “conventional” branches are much more popular than the Japanese. We understand that players are annoyed to play against them, but understand that it is very difficult for us to balance such tanks when such a small number of people play on them.”
What If you make it cheaper to use AP and increace its penetration. And make gold more expansive but same penetration. Then you got two option where AP is cheaper to use for The same pen, it would be less valueble to use gold because its more expansive. Just my thoughts on this gold problem.
“it usually does not matter if you shoot with BB shells or gold.”
“Here’s what would happen – people will load only premium shells, and the standard will be useless.”
Goddamn, what a bunch of lying fucks. I laughed my ass off.