0.12 Patch

New Tank Destroyer Class Ability

I played quite a few TD games and the ability itself is a good addition to the class, but i would like to see a way to improve the time when you activate it and when it is on cool down. 1 minute cool down is long and the ability itself just works when you are stationary, which is at least for me a real downside.
Probably you need to get used to it, but still i think that there should be some improvement to this ability .


Rear Armor Rebalance

• Lowered rear of T90-MS from 100 to 70
• Lowered rear of T90 from 80 to 70
• Lowered rear of Terminator from 80 to 70
• Lowered rear of Ramka from 90 to 70

 Iam actually not sure, on how much armor the "T-72/90" hull has at its back but on the other hand i would question if they put in a higher number than they actually have in real life . Though for myself and for at least some ingame meta, rear should be a weak spot in general for MBTs, while side armor can vary on the kit they are using, but this should be close to real life values and not tuned to make them even harder to kill .



B1 DRACO

• Penetration for all rounds increased by ~15%
• Targeting Time decreased from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds
• Hull traverse accuracy bloom rate decreased from 0.75 to 0.3
• Smallest reticule size decreased from 0.14 to 0.125
• Largest reticule size decreased from 0.84 to 0.75
• Hit Points increased from 1760 to 1935

Who would have thought that a SPAAG which had almost the same penetration values as a 30mm autocannon, will not do great in a meta where MBTs are superior to everyone else. I don't know why you put it on tier 9, but one thing is for sure, on a lower tier against more different classes / vehicles it would do a better job, than being top tier in a meta where you have MBTs "only". I said often enough that right tiering is important and that production date is not a primarily value for adding vehicles in high tiers


Stingray 1 and Stingray 2
The Stingrays are just about in the right balance range, but we've given them a slight increase to Hit Points and AP round penetration as quality of life improvements, and we're looking into some issues with their mobility for future patches. Stingray 1:

• Stingray 1 Hit Points increased from 1465 to 1580
• Stock AP round increased penetration increased from 265 to 278
• First AP upgrade penetration increased from 278 to 292
• Second AP upgrade penetration increased from 285 to 299
• Third AP upgrade penetration increased from 298 to 313
• Stock Shaped Charge penetration increased from 244 to 262
• Upgraded HEAT penetration increased from 249 to 274

Well this might more a personal issue with the Stingray 1 (didn't have the SR 2 yet), but for me it feels awkward to increase these stats, since you are playing a Light Tank, which feels sluggish to drive, limited in its mobility and its overall gun handling (gun depression) seems a bit off. Besides this you are fairly big and have no armor to work with against same tier auto cannons or due your bad MM against higher tiers.
Pushing the penetration values is most likely the easiest move , but it won't fix the issue for being a Light Tank. If i would compare the Stingray with the T5 LT or both my premium LTs (VFM-5 and Exp. Tank), he is worse than both premiums, by far and even lower than the T5 LT. 
Like i said before i don't think that this buff will change the stingray that much .


Player versus Environment

There are numerous changes in PvE and i've not played that much PvE lately, but if you want to increase the difficulty without making it too easy, you should adjust the pathing of the AI. This means that they don't drive to the players with their back forward or turn on point for no reason etc. . On the other hand the random spawning around you is something that i don't like since low armored vehicles are restricted to long range engagements only, while MBTs can take more shots and they will get the spotting damage as well. 
However iam not saying that it is impossible for non MBT vehicles, but it is way harder to play non MBTs and more stressful if you compare them .


Player versus Player

The map changes, well i have seen some of them , though some are nice i would like to see a map selection , since i don't like most of your new map designs , as they are restricting too much.

• Lost Island - nice visual, somewhat bad gameplay. Definitively a map i would deactivate right away
• Narrows - nice visual, restricting gameplay. Definitively a map i would deactivate right away
• Reactor - restricting gameplay.  Definitively a map i would deactivate right away
• River Point -  restricting gameplay.(seriously base camping is supported here) Definitively a map i would deactivate right away
• Pipelines - is quite good compared to your other "new" maps, though there is room of improvement !

Issues and Corrections

• Fixed an issue where Freja Hojbjerg's commander skill "Full Auto" was not working properly.

Well it doesn't lower the time in between shots for the SPG's, though i think from the description it should. I don't know if you guys test your own stuff, but this is the result when i pick it.

1. Full auto = 3053dpm
2. No skill = 3195dpm
3. Fire when Ready = 3714dpm

Either your description is wrong or you still didn't fix it or it is not intended to be used on SPGs.


Conclusion

They fixed a lot of stuff which is fine, even though some of that is not correct working (above) , i still think that they should focus more on the critical things like the bad MatchMaking or putting vehicles into wrong tiers or not adding the EXP to lines that jump a tier, to make the grind as long as lines that don't have a gap / jump in it. However they should not add any new tiers in the near future, due obvious balancing reasons.

If you want a priority list on what you should do :

1. MM (pick the right values to judge)
2. Vehicle tiering
3. Balancing in the right area
4. Map design

Merry Christmas

I wish all people a Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the time with your family, enjoy the food and enjoy the gifts / presents .

Cheers

Suggestion -> Difficulty of a Vehicle

In one of the latest Obsidian/my.com streams i suggested something which should make it easier to see if a vehicle is suited for me or not. Not every vehicle is the same, which means some have a lower skill cap and are easier to play successful and some have a higher skill cap.
As for example my statistics with the Leopard 1A5, Chieftain and T-72 are really close together, despite all 3 of them have a different play style and are harder or easier to play / master .
What iam looking for is a value either done by the devs or by the players or together which reflects the difficulty of a vehicle.

 

 

Currently we have 6 values that reflect a vehicle.

• Alpha damage and penetration
• Sustained Damage (DPM)
• Defense
• Mobility
• Utility
• Targeting

I would cut some of the values and it could be like this.

• Firepower (includes penetration , damage, rate of fire, aiming speed, accuracy)
• Defense (HP, Armor+resistance, camo,  maybe active stuff like Smoke)
• Versatility (Max speed, a general value for acceleration, View range, retrofit slots, agility[traverse speeds for hull/turret])
• Difficulty rating which takes the values above into count

The "rating" can be something like 1*= low skill cap/easier to play up to 5* = high skill cap/ hard to play . Reducing the values to 3 major areas which is the Gun aka Firepower, your defense capabilities and how versatile you can be on the Battlefield.
Those 3 areas define the vehicle and give it its identity and the difficulty.

1000 PVP battles with a small conclusion

Recently i just played my 1000th PvP battle and now i was thinking of what iam going to do with Armored Warfare. Playing successful is one thing , having fun and the feeling that they are on the right way another.
I will just add up a quick summary on how i see the game in its current state.

The plus points

• new engine
• events
• daily news (except the bias stuff)
• devs are trying / open minded
• theme / era
• possible future
• good low to mid tier (T1-T5 probably T6 )
• PVE
• some maps are looking good (visual)

 I don't say that the CryEngine itself is a good argument, but a new engine should have better options and more capabilities all around, that is why i picked it in a more general way.

The Evens are good and relatively frequently, whereas i don't have the feeling yet, that you are getting milked that much, though from my point of view iam critical about the current state of the game.

Having stories or news itself on a regular basis is really good, while i don't mind a day where you don't get a news if there is none, which means rather hold the bias trash back and not post it in future. Sometimes is less, more .

Personally i talked 1 time with the devs , or most likely i listen to them and their answers, and i really like the way they did it. If i could i would like to talk more with them, especially the specialists in their different departments of them game, like balancing, maps etc. .

The theme or the timewindow (era) has a lot of options and it is something new, though even the previous theme, which would be 2nd WW era, has its limits unless you start the bluepaperwork.

AW has a lot of potential, so had WoT or even has Fallout 4, the overall question is, will they use it.

The low to mid tier battles are quite some fun and for myself i didn't play past tier 6, just once to test the PzH 2000, but thats it.

PVE is a nice addition while in its current state they wasted a lot here in my opinion

In general most of the maps have a good visual design, but not entirely sure about the game design

The negative points

• high tier is unbalanced / power creep
• T9 / T10
• Landslides 90% of the time
• map design is awful for some maps
• no identity of vehicles
• no straight forward "doctrine" when it comes down to vehicle + tier
• PvE design could be better

Personally i played a lot of high tier during the EA's, but overall it was a bit boring and the recent changes they did towards certain classes, just made high tier really one dimensional to play. The Challenge itself as a gameplay option just changed to be impossible

I never was or am a fan of T9/T10 and their choices for some of the vehicles just show me that iam right with my concern, and balance aside, you cant balance what shouldn't be there at all . Toyota Hilux iam looking at you in the near future :)

Either your roll them like a truck or you get rolled. The answer that the game is new and so on, gets old very quick as you don't need to learn rocket science here and the landslides are no fun ,though it is clear that the MM tries to give better players more or less a disadvantage than a challenge. I have nothing against a challenge, but you give 2-3 players an impossible mission to win .

I might be different here, but i'd rather have a small amount of maps who are balanced, than a large quantity with no balance at all. Think about your map design more from a player's perspective. Visual is fine, design itself is limiting, or go straight up and go from 15vs15 to 10vs10 !

The identity is represented by its design, age, upgrades and in here what class it should be. Some classes have no identity aka different gameplay and some vehicles are just wrong balanced with no straight up way to put them in, except filling high tier (you get why T9/10 is a bad choice)

Somewhat like before mentioned, vehicles need something which represents its capabilities on field and in his "class", some vehicles are looking for it ,ever since.

PvE is a nice way to reduce the number of players which you need to carry from ~10 to ~3 maybe, but the main focus is here for MBT's again. It is a challenge for all other classes, but hello the design could be better by a large margin. MBT focus, not using all the area, power creeped AI ( like T5 vs T9 ) and the reduced vision range, not to mention that it is not that arty friendly as well. 


Conclusion

There are more positive and negative points, but the crucial ones should be mentioned before we go into further details on what can be improved or is in a good state. For myself i will check on what they are doing , but not playing a lot either. The forum is a awkward place and keeping the interest high is currently not a good option for me.

Long Term Project for a more individual style

 Introduction

This was a post i made a bit before the Alpha phase started , just to give an idea of how you can have a long term success for players that are loving a specific vehicle. Within the current game as it is now in Open Beta, your long term goal is just to unlock and grind vehicles. Some have the patience for the long grinds and time and some others don't and stick to a tier range where you can have fun.
From my perspective it is the last point actually, why i don't go any further in PvP than tier 6 and have no goal to grind most of the vehicles in PvE. The reason why i picked this up again, is fairly simple as i got my Crew capped out (since they are not focusing the work on their new crew system) and i have no goal set where i can improve my vehicle to make it more efficient.
In World of Tanks you could only train your Crew once you got your tank on elite status which is for me just 1 way to have a goal set after you unlocked all the modules.

I know some MMO's which had something prepared after you capped out your character, to give you a reason to play the game further with your character, like improving, unlocking different items etc. . My "idea" is quite similar , as the player needs something once he unlocked all the modules for his vehicle.

Background

If you are working as a mercenary or a company which works in that environment you will have restrictions on what you can buy / get and afford, due the newest military equipment is either restricted to certain nations and their Army or even to the Corporation itself. This means you have a limited variety on what you can actually buy on the market.

Adding a unique dealer (blackmarket / aftermarket sales) who sells upgrades / modules / visual stuff on the world map who is available once you hit the described way just below, should add a more in depth atmosphere and adds a even more unique way to customise your own vehicle .

Another good point for this is, that you select the stuff which fits your playstyle, as for example a player who plays with "soft" vehicle's aggressive, should not add huge steel plates, as it would lower his mobility on which he relies on, instead he would go for a custom engine with more CC to gain more torque .

Aftermarket Modifications

Current setting :
0% -> 50% (proven) -> 100% (elite) -> unlocking next tier or token
My setting :
0% -> 50% (proven) -> 100% (elite) -> connection's | unlocking next tier or token

Explanation

Once you hit the 100% you will unlock the "connection" status besides the tier or token thing. Having connections these days will open you some doors , who were closed before and this system is aiming for the same actually.
Connection's itself will unlock certain modules / upgrades for your vehicle to make it more unique and give long term vehicle "lover's" something that give them a difference to the regular elite status of a vehicle .

Top :
100% regular Elite Status
Middle :
Connection status (in this case 0%)
Bottom :
50% connection status

In short

Once you have achieved the 100% Elite status you are able to grind even further (connection's) to unlock more unique modules, upgrades or visual stuff which is bound to the vehicle .

How this can look / work ?

Upgrades / modules should come with a pro and con, which means you gain something but get a flaw with it. As for example if you add armor you gain more protection, but lose mobility , so you need decide yourself on what you want to achieve.

Here are some examples for possible upgrades:

• Cage armor ( all around / certain area's )
• Armor plates ( Steel / Iron / Titanium / Aluminium / Uranium )
• Different armor stuff ( Composite / Bulletproofglass / Ceramic plates )
• ERA bricks ( light / medium / heavy )
• Engine types ( more Cylinder capacity / different turbo charger / different engine design / other engine producer)
• Tracks ( different layout / track pads / different material )
• non standard ammunition choices, radio systems ( for vehicle name change for example ), FCS, optics, remove able extra fuel tanks, different sideskirt layout, different road wheels( visual ), different antennas( visual ), extra storage boxes ( visual / extra ammo ) , flags for the antennas ( visual like nation flags or clan logo ), sandbags ( visual ), umbrella ( visual )
• different turret design ( Falcon turret for example )
• Stalinlog ( visual )
• electric / hydraulic turret engine

You could add a lot of unqiue things this way, while some of them might change the performance slightly for the vehicle , you need to keep in mind that performance changing upgrades always should come with a flaw, while just visual upgrades , are just to make the look more unique and rewarding for people who play a lot the same vehicles over and over again .

Reasoning

If you google a bit you will recognize that some Defence Corporations are offering different upgrades for some vehicles, like some of them mentioned above. The reason why that is so, not every Army has the money to buy the new released vehicles, despite you might not be friendly with the producing nation / corporation or just reasons like the money.

There are a lot of those corporations out there who are offering a lot of individual upgrades for older vehicles to give them somewhat a chance for a fairly low cost . A good example can be older T- series tanks, like T-54/55 or T-62 or the BMP- series has quite some unique offers or the Leopard 2A4 has quite some options as well .

"Black Friday Event" and MBT Compared

 Black Friday Event

Overall i do like the idea behind it, and the lottery is a welcome change ,despite nothing new for me, due me EVE background where you had similar stuff going on, but for this kinda game it seems to be really a nice step forward.
Only drawback is, that all the lottery is rigged, since i didn't won anything :-P *jk*

What i didn't like is actually on how they have done it, meaning the "skin" . The Merc skin does look quite cool, and it comes off with a lvl 5 crew, which is nothing big, but well people get already a decent vehicle from the start. My reasoning why i didn't like it that much is, that this is just a skin and nothing special in the meaning you get something "more unique". Of course they are limiting it by just selling it for a few days, but it is and will be just a skin nothing more.

With a little more effort they would added something like this :

• different smoke color
• additional stuff on the vehicles ( storage boxes , barbwire[for checkpoints irl], antennas with a little flag  etc)
• additional custom armor plates or cage etc.
• different  sounds maybe
• or new and unique sounds when using them , like new commands, jokes , taunts etc.

Those are just some things that come to my mind to make such vehicles more unique than just having a skin. I would see it like they do it in LOL for example, where the most expensive skins, add new sounds, different detailed look, different high quality animations etc. .
However that is just me and personally i didn't bought anything, because i have no reason to buy them.


MBT Compared

Who would have thought that this game will go into the same direction as WoT and WT , with their national bias . It was released , because there was nothing other ready and it would fit etc. . However it might be just me , but sometimes it is better to post nothing then, instead of such a garbage comparison . I won't even go into the details on how bad it is, though it is on the same level as most of the youtube top 10 tank rankings .

Advice for the future, just don't , otherwise people will realize faster that EU and NA are just there to be milked .

Reloadtime bug and its annoying drawbacks for the PzH 2000

Due the recent event i have grinded quite a lot to finish up at least 1 SPG line to get the mark. 3 retrofit. My overall opinion about the 3 salvo magazine SPG's is quite strict as i don't like it for the most part. To sum them up, there are at least for me more disadvantages than advantages.

• less alpha per shell
• highly depended to hit 3 shots
• hard to balance
• difficult to empty the magazine
• not "historical accurate"

What annoys me the most is actually the fact that it is way harder to balance a magazine mechanic like you have right now, than sticking to be a single loader, like they are in real life. I guess they have done it , to add more diversity , though i dislike that move, due the unhistorical approach to most of the SPG's to fit that diversity.

I guess the picture is selfexplaining. The difference for the most part is, that the longer your reload is, the more you suffer from the rollercoaster jumping for the reloadtime. In some games you have your stated reload time which is actually fine, but in some games you have the stated 12.81 seconds for example, but for some reason the reload time takes another 4-5 seconds at 0.01 seconds left , so your real reloadtime is ~18.80 seconds actually.
I can't say for sure, but it is either 17.80 or 18.80 seconds. However i don't know how that "diversity" can happen that often without any mechanics behind that, due i never change my crew nor the retrofits for every match up. From what i know i would assume that the syncronisation is bad as always, which can be seen in the impact of SPG shells  and where they hit actually.

From my point of view it gets really annoying when you need to wait extra long for the reload which effectively lowers my efficiency by quite a lot with all these alpha monster's naming the MBT's . This might not be important for the russian player's but the small details make the difference between a game that has 90 out of 100 points or 95 out of 100 points, though AW is far away from these points anyway in its current state :*)