Camo price and map choices

Few words to start

The current situation in the forum is, that some people think, that the camo prices are too high, even for mid tier vehicles. Although it might be true that in high tier the prices for camo are high, yet i can't tell on what the general income is on those tiers, since i don't play them . So there might be a need for a little adjustment, though i think that the players are complaining way too much about it. Gold or farming credits, your choice .

My Point of View

I could be wrong, but in World of Tanks, back when i played it you had only 1 choice to keep the camo permanent, and that was buying it with gold. The other options where that you could have it for a couple of days, while you pay it with ingame currency. Of course you could maintain the camo on your tanks with buying them over and over again, yet i think, most people including me just bought them for gold.

Armored Warfare done something similar and added the option to buy camo via gold or credits and to come to my point of view, they added the option to purchase the camo forever for a vehicle, not only with gold but with credits as well.

Assuming that you can just invest gold to buy / unlock a camo pattern for your vehicle or if you want to farm you can invest your credits that way. For myself I have done it with 1 tier 6 vehicle and 1 tier 5 vehicle and i think that the way the have it ingame is fine. It is more a cosmetic thing and that you have the option to unlock it per vehicle and change them with other patterns that you can unlock without repaying is fairly good, if i see it right.

To sum it up, you have 2 ways of purchasing / unlocking patterns.

1. Gold
2. Credits

You keep the patterns for the unlocked vehicle if you buy them on a non limited time base.

I don't see a reason to complain here, actually. They could have implented the Camo patterns on a Gold only basis if you want to keep it forever and for credits just on a limited time base, though I'd take the current system over this.
Yes it is expensive, but i wonder if any of those players had every tank they had in WoT with camo as well.

Conclusion

Players should be happy that they can purchase Camo patterns for credits with no time limitation and if they really need to open xxx threads about how unfair it is, because it is not. Gold = easy way, credits = long term farming and more focus on where you "need" camo.

Map Choices

Reactor is back, and i still don't like it. I know that they have said that they won't implement a map selection, but for fuck sake, i just want it. I have no fun on Roughneck with my Leopard 1A5 or T-72, or Pipelines on south spawn, is no fun as well, next to Narrows in a AFV or LT, heck even as a TD it is hard to play, not to mention River Point where base camping is rewarded, and to complete to minirage, Lost Island is another map which i don't like to play.

I mean even Ghost Field is mediocre to play by now, since it become a clockwork rush from both spawns, like driving in a racing circuit. The issue might be just team related or vehicle or MM related, but when i see one of the above / first mentioned maps, i already feel bad to play on those. 

Though every player has different taste, i'd rather be on a map that i like and play it often, than on a map which i dislike to play even though it is just a couple of times. To give you an idea, Reactor has a lot of difference in terrain level, which is bad for vehicles that have bad gun depression or elevation, and guess what you get with the Centauro ? Yes Reactor....

Iam pretty sure that there are positions where you can be useful, but damn this map is a pain to play. Another example would be Lost Island with a SPG. This map is just stupid for those and the cornering is just the right area to fight for heavy armored vehicles.....

To give you an impression, some maps are not meant to be played by some vehicles or classes, and you force them to do so. This is like playing with a M82A1 (Barrett) on a MOUT map, where you have a fighting range from like 50-100m . That's how your maps are and you can't change them to fit every class or vehicle, but what you can do, is to lower the chance for the players to join those maps .

Suggestion

• Map selection
• or Map selection per vehicle/class 

As for the latter one -> You select the maps you want to play with a vehicle or in general you select the maps for the class that should be played there.

Lost Island = MBTs for example
Port Storm = Arty for example
Cold Strike = mixed for example

Yes you said that you are not working on this nor that you have it on your roadmap, but you should start considering something else then, since there will be always maps where you have the feeling of being useless or unhappy when you see the loading screen already .

Tiering by Ammunition for Autocannons

Introduction

When it comes to tiering Obsidian seems to go with the introduction date of the vehicle and belives that this is a solid choice for some reason. A problem that might occur is, that you can introduce a vehicle in 2010, but with a weapon system that worked reliable for the past 40 years, should that vehicle then become high tier, just because it is new ?
My answer is yes and no. Yes for a dual weapon system, where the ATGM is really strong and No for a single weapon system, since it relies only on the autocannon.

Overall informations

Autocannons start with the caliber of 20mm and gone up to 76mm. These are some examples of variants and manufactures .

20x102mm : M621 (CP 20) | Nexter

20x139mm : RH202 | Rheinmetall

25x137mm : M242 Bushmaster | MDD

30x113mm : M230 Chaingun | ATK

30x165mm : 2A42 | KBP

30x170mm : RARDEN | BAE

30x173mm : Mk44 Bushmaster II | ATK

30x250mm : RMK30 | Rheinmetall

35x228mm : Bushmaster III | ATK

40x364mmR: Bofors 40mm | Bofors

40x365mm : Bushmaster IV | ATK

57x438mm : Bofors 57 | Bofors

76x636mm : OTO Melara 76 mm | Oto Melara

The blue marked calibers are NATO standard as far as i know, though there might be more standard calibers, yet i didn't found a good list for those.

What we know now, is that there are a lot of different calibers and every vehicle or nation decided to use some of them more or less. I should mention here, that caliber size and length is important when it comes to performance, but there are other factors as well, which are important to know, like for example the barrellength, used ammunition (yes ammunition has improved over the years), rate of fire, barrelwear, shellspeed, range, shellweight.

As for the latter one i found something interesting, despite it was used to compare calibers for "AA" service (Anti Air) from the Australian Government in "Limitations of Guns as a Defence against Manoeuvering Air Weapons"(missiles).

You see that even some of them have the same caliber, but a different cartridge length. Assuming that a longer cartridge improves your penetration power is given, but not the only reason, as i have said before, there are more values that you need to take into count.

General assumption

Barrellength = range, velocity, accuracy, dispersion due barrelswinging

Cartridgelength = penetration (mass of the projectile), range, velocity

Calibersize = penetration, rate of fire

For example the M230 Chaingun has L/42 while the M230LF has L/60 as barrellength, although it should be mentioned you increase weight and recoilforce with it . While this seems to be a good increase, you won't ever be on the same penetration levels as a 30x165/170/173mm cartridge, the difference in length is just too big of an influence in penetration.

The main reason why iam posting this, is that calibers have a restriction even if they are in the same size , the length does make a difference in possible performance. Assuming that the Developers of Armored Warfare have read books and magazines regarding this , they should be aware that balancing or rather tiering by caliber next to introduction date and possible armor, mobility etc. is important.

Let us see what vehicles use which caliber in AW.

20x102mm : XM800T(T3) [not sure about this actually]

20x139mm : M113(T1), LAV150(T2),AMX 10P(T3), VBL(T6), Wiesel(T7)

25x137mm : LAV150(T2), M2 Bradley(T6), CRAB(T9)

30x113mm : CRAB(T9)

30x165mm : BMP-2(T5)/3(T6)/3M(T7) , BMD-2(T5)/4(T7) , BMPT(T6)/Ramka(T8)/BMPT2(T9)

30x170mm : Fox(T5), Warrior(T8)

30x250mm : Wiesel(T7)

57x438mm : BPz 57(T5)

76x636mm : Draco(T9)

Interesting here is, that i wouldn't put the BPz 57 in a higher tier, despite having a 57mm autocannon i didn't find any data on its possible penetration so, and the overall design and production date, fit the tier quite good.

On the other hand i find the Draco, despite having a big gun, it shouldn't be tier 9. Tier 8 would be a good tier with the 76mm, also you need to keep in mind, when they introduce the Rooikat, that this vehicle uses the exact same weapon and depending on where they tier this vehicle, the Draco should be the same tier then.

While i agree that this might be confusing or just my own opinion, but i have in mind possible vehicles that use the same weapon system, the introduction date, the design (mobility, armor, utility, task, other weapons ?) and if it makes sense. For example the RARDEN weapon system is one of the worst systems you can have, due its mechanics itself. This results in a good tier choice for the Fox, but i don't understand why the Warrior with the exact same weapon system, is 3 tiers higher. Tier 6 would be a good choice here.

As for the main target of this, the CRAB, this one should be the successor of the VBL which means tier 7 and not anything higher.

My changes would be:

Warrior T6 (it is not better than the Bradley)
Crab T7 (caliber limitation)
Ramka T7 (not sure)
BMPT2 T8 (not sure, have no intel about the ATGMs)
Draco T8 (for now)

Future Vehicles :

Puma T8 (Spike[ATGM] would be the only reason to put it higher)
K21 T7/8 (ATGM would be a reason to place it T8) / no armor for T9
Ajax T8 (maybe T9 , depending on the ATGM)

Conclusion

They really need to have the caliber in mind , when they decide to select a vehicle for a possible tier. I would take real life values as a basic guideline and tweak them a bit to add a variety to the game, while having in mind, that there are limits. Excuses like it is a "arcade" game are rather pointless, since all vehicles ingame are based of real projects and pushing or pressing vehicles into tiers is never a good decision regarding balance.

Sources

Regarding the first image a PDF from the Australian Government
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a426717.pdf

Regarding the second imgae and the comparison in caliber difference

http://warfaretech.blogspot.de/2014/03/atk-bushmaster-iii-automatic-cannon.html 

Regarding the CRAB picture and the manufacture Cockerill / CMI (bottom right ->brochure-> the pdf file)

http://www.cmigroupe.com/en/p/cockerill-cpws-20-25-30

0.12.1758 changes ..... lol

B1 Draco

- amount of shells in autoloader increased from 8 to 12
- ammo carried increased from 160 to 240
- stock AP shell penetration increased from 293 to 331
- elite AP shell penetration increased from 308 to 348
Seems a reasonable buff, despite i don't see it on tier 9 nonetheless. Yes it is a SPAAG , yes it has a 76mm Shipcannon, yes it is on the Centauro Chassis instead of the OF-40 (Otomatic), yes it is "fairly new", but no it shouldn't be tier 9. The higher the tier goes the more damage they'll do, and the Turret is "big" and will soak up damage even more on higher tiers.


BMPT-72

- hitpoints increased from 1760 to 2000
- ATGM reload time decreased from 24 to 20 secs
- AP shell penetration increased from 177 to 201
- accuracy penalty from movement reduced from 0.25 to 0.2
- accuracy penalty from turning reduced from 0.75 to 0.6
While i agree that HP and ATGM should be buffed, i don't agree with the AP penetration, unless it is intended to introduce the overpenetration mechanic again. BMPT series overall counters all low armored vehicles pretty hard, and this increases the feature quite hard with the AP and reduction while moving buff. They should go more with the ATGM buff so it has better chances against MBT's than being a pure counter to all non MBT's

M2 Bradley

- stock AP shell damage increased from 41 to 45
- middle AP shell damage inceased from 46 to 48
- elite AP shell damage increased from 48 to 51
- stock HE shell damage increased from 31 to 33
- elite HE shell damage increased from 34 to 37
- stock ATGM damage increased from 371 to 420
- elite ATGM damage inceased from 389 to 441
- ATGM reload time reduced from 24 to 18 secs
- stock ATGM penetration increased from 668 to 702
- elite ATGM penetration inceased from 699 to 734
No opinion as i never liked the Bradley, yet i have played not that many games with it. Guess it goes into the right direction

LAV 600

- aiming time reduced from 3,4 to 3 secs
- maximum accuracy (circle smallest) improved from 0.122 to 0.099
- minimum accuracy (circle largest) improved from 1,47 to 1,191
- reload time reduced from 6,4 to 5,82 secs
Seems a solid decision, despite the gun handling improvement is just minor, since you have no gundepression, mediocre camo and a indirect movement when driving, which feels awkward to drive .




T-64


- hitpoints improved from 1220 to 1310
- stock viewrange improved from 320 to 330 meters
Okay .......

T-72

- hitpoints improved from 1415 to 1555
- stock viewrange improved from 320 to 330 meters
Okay .......
I get the same avg. dmg for my T5 MBTs , yet you buff the T-series again. While i agree that the T-72 ain't easy to play, if you use your brain just a bit, you will get the same results as in the Chieftain or Leopard 1A5.
T-72A

- hitpoints improved from 1510 to 1705
- stock viewrange improved from 320 to 330 meters
- reload time of stock AP shell reduced from 9,52 to 9,09 secs
- ATGM reload time reduced from 16,67 to 13,33 secs
Okay .......
 
T-80

- hitpoints improved from 1875 to 1995
- reload time of stock AP shell reduced from 8,7 to 8,4 secs
- ATGM reload time reduced from 12,9 to 12,12 secs
Okay ....... And the Leopard 2 has the same HP, bigger silhouette, worse gun performance and at best same mobility, yet we have a page here with only T-series buffs. Either you picked the wrong tier for the tanks, which seems solid or 90% of the playerbase is just bad.
 
Akatsiya

- reload time reduced from 20 to 18 secs
- aimtime reduced from 7 to 6,5 secs

How does it come that you buff a arty ? Last time i saw you changing something for the Akatsiya was just nerfs





A few words to this

Those are just the vehicle changes, although i agree with some of the stuff, i find myself with some issues again, but that will most likely be always the case. If you watched your own game from a competitive point of view in random battles just for a few matches, you will recognize that the average skill level is beyond acceptable , nor will they ever change, as they have different interests and ambition.

People often say, this tank is garbage or this is just bad , i can't club other players as I've seen or expected to do so. The difference here is, players that have interest in improving, will improve themselves, players that don't do it, will most likely be always deadweight to the team and will always do bad in most vehicles, even the ones that are going into the "OP" direction.


I never understood your part of balancing vehicles, even back in the Alpha or EA stages, and it seems it will be that way for the most part in future as well, but one thing you should keep an eye on, the interest and need of improving for the players.
Balancing solely on statistics is one form of balancing, the other one is, to try to educate your players or lets say it like this, the need to improve to get better results.

Designating a Target improvement

Introduction

Within the current mechanics for AFV's, DT (designated target) is a powerful active ability, which has 2 options for usage actually. The first one is the non penalty / max damage ability when you designated a target and the second one is what people might not see in the first place, the denial of gameplay for the target while the he is designated.

This comes with a prize of some risk, depending on what AFV you are using in what match up. You need ~2-3(not sure actually) seconds and a line of sight to designate a target . On paper it might seem a fairly low amount, but ingame it feels long and often enough you break the line of sight for some reason . While i agree that you need this kind of risk for a relatively powerful ability, the cooldown on it is quite long and i would like to see statistics on how much people use this ability actually per battle.

Suggestion

What i thought of an improvement aims directly on the ability cooldown itself as it should reward some of its risk and a good choice / teamwork . How i would do this ?
When you designate a target with full health, and within the designation you kill the target due good calling/ teamwork / focus fire, you should be rewarded with lower cooldown for the ability. Currently it is 1 minute. If you successfully killed a full HP designated target the cooldown for the ability should be reduced for the next usage , for lets say 30 seconds / 50% , but just for the next usage. If the next designated target is not killed within the time , you should have the regular cooldown again.

Requirements for this:

• Designated Target needs to have 80% or more HP
• The Target needs to be killed within the timeframe the ability is used on it
• Targets that have below 80% HP, should not give a ability cooldown or as another option you grant for every 5% of HP that is below 80% a 5 second cooldown increase based on the 30 seconds. 

80% +   = 30 seconds cooldown
75-79% = 35 seconds cooldown
70-74% = 40 seconds cooldown
65-69% = 45 seconds cooldown
60-64% = 50 seconds cooldown
55-59% = 55 seconds cooldown
50-54% = 60 seconds cooldown (regular cooldown)

Reasoning

It should be rewarded if you focus down a target within the timeframe, although i don't know if this might be too powerful for PvE. If that is the case, you can decrease the amount of effectiveness for this ability when used frequently in short time, within the "rewarded cooldown".

Stacking of stats with or without a Penalty ? *updated*

At the moment the in game mechanics allow you to stack multiple stats without any flaw when you use more of the same kind. Usually this ends up in worse situations where stacking 1 specific stat shines all above the others, as you have various ways of boosting it. Ideally you can do this with different settings, assuming that we talk about Armored Warfare, you have 3 ways to do this.

• Crew and Commander
• Retrofits and Upgrades
• Consumables

Crew and Commander

If we start with the Crew and Commander stat, you need to know that this system is in a rework phase, although i can understand that they don't pay a lot attention to their current state of the art. This ain't an excuse , because i hope that the reworked system goes into the RPG direction , which would solve some of the problems, depending on how good their math is.

Retrofits and Upgrades

As said before you can stack stats without a penalty, and some of the upgrades improve stats like Aimtime , Accuracy or Reload Time . While i think that upgrades are a legit way to increase the power of a vehicle , retrofits are an incredible way to change a vehicle completely.


When they first introduced this kinda system, i was surprised how much potential it has, but i immediately thought about how you can abuse it, or in other words i hoped that they done the math about maximum efficiency. This might sound bad in first place, but as a player you want to get better and therefore you look out for ways to improve yourself and the vehicle you are using.

Retrofits are balanced by 2 things:

• number of slots
• type of slots
• (penalty for stacking the same stat)

What they are missing is a penalty for stacking the same stat with each other as a balance thing and this is why i put them in () . The meaning of this point is, if you stack the same stat with 2 retrofits, the weaker one will receive a penalty of its effectiveness. This idea is nothing new, as for example in EVE Online there was a similar case with the Amarr Armageddon (i believe it was beta, although it got changed lately).
Amarr Battleship Skill Bonuses: +5% Large Energy Turret rate of fire and -10% Large 
Heat Sinks below (current state)
Dissipates energy weapon damage efficiently, thus allowing them to be fired more rapidly.

Penalty: Using more than one type of this module or similar modules that affect the same attribute on the ship will be penalized. 
The reason why i post this, is that there were modules who are called "Heat Sinks" which increased the rate of fire and they had no penalty, while using more than 1. As a result the Armageddon had an incredible high DPS and as this was more or less broken the devs, decided to put in a Penalty for every type of this kind of module.

In Armored Warfare it should be similar that stacking the same stat with more than 1 module, results in a Penalty to the effectiveness of that module in general . While we are at this, there should be a penalty as well , when a Commander has the "Leadership" skill and you install a retrofit that boosts the same stat, it should be affected by the penalty, even when it is the only module of its kind in the retrofit slot. This goes for the "vision range" skill as well .

The reason why i would do it this way is fairly simple, if you have a Commander that has a passive skill that boost a stat, like vision range or crew skills, it literally acts like a "upgrade / retrofit" and you should either take the penalty or you look out for something different without a penalty to raise your effectiveness . I don't want to prevent stacking, but you need to decide for yourself if it is worth it or not, and Commander skills, at least such crucial ones should apply to that "pool" as well.

Consumables

There are 2 kinds of passive consumables which are boosting stats. The first is the one that is the main reason for all the complains in the forum, the Crew boosting consumables: Energy Drink and Protein Bar . Both boost Crew skills and their effectiveness in general have a real high value if you go with a full "Crew boost setup".
The other passive consumables are Engine oil and Synthetic oil. Here Obsidian made already a call, that you can't stack both with each other, which means you need to pick either the cheap or expensive one for your boost, but you can't use both. It is understandable that they made this call here and have a straight up decision for you, it could be the same case in the end for both above mentioned crew consumables.

However they could also give the stacking of those crew boosters a penalty if you want to use both .


Conclusion

The biggest problem is the math for stats, which Obsidian needs to do beforehand, when they release stuff. I don't want to blame anyone, but their testers need to pay more attention to this.
As a solution, CCP had shown on how you can do it with a reasonable and easy setting, the stacking penalty for the same stat (module regarding EVE). Another way could be the nerf or change of some retrofits or crew skills, although i prefer the penalty concept more.

Edit: Example

Crew : 10% crew skill bonus
Vehicle : 10% crew skill bonus and 10% accuracy bonus
Retrofits : 10% crew skill bonus / 10% accuracy bonus / 10% damage bonus / 10% damage bonus
Commander : 10% crew skill bonus
Consumables : 10% crew skill bonus


Summary : 50% Crew skill bonus / 20% Accuracy bonus / 20% Damage bonus

Vehicle and Crew are our base on what we start the penalties.

• 20% crew skill bonus / 10% accuracy bonus
• 7.5% crew skill bonus / 7.5% accuracy bonus / 7.5% damage bonus / 5% damage bonus
• 5% crew skill bonus
• 2.5% crew skill bonus

Summary : 35% Crew skill bonus / 17.5% Accuracy bonus / 12.5% Damage bonus
Stacking penalties per stack :

1. 25%
2. 50%
3. 75%

This is just an example on how you can proceed and my order is Vehicle+Crew, then retrofits, then commander and last comes the consumables. My penalties affect the bonus itself, that is given by the value and order.
Although you could add a global penalty which affects only the bonus stats and the number of each stack, up to 75%.

• 20% crew skill bonus / 10% accuracy bonus
• 7.5% crew skill bonus / 7.5% accuracy bonus / 10% damage bonus

Summary : 27.5% crew skill bonus / 17.5% accuracy bonus / 10% damage bonus

75% penalty for stacking 3 times crew skill bonus / 25% penalty for stacking 1 time accuracy / 50% penalty for stacking 2 times damage

Happy New Year everyone

I wish you a happy new year and hope that you started it well.

Thank you for lurking through my blog :)