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Got sidetracked a bit but there's far too much conspiracy theory around here, really. @Lenticulas I guess I'm bending the odds? There's a LOT to the matchmaker that you need to know if you want to attempt these things. First and foremost, for example, no camping unarmored tds because unless you get a Wilk on Grindelwald (with someone who REALLY knows how to play it and can do 25k dmg with no bomber) you put your team at a disadvantage, since it gets matched against T15s. Then... No crap tanks. Leo, Type 99, Type 99 140, Merkava, XM1A3. They get matched vs anything, that can also be a full CATTB platoon, and then you'd be like "Damn", but it's your own fault for picking a crap one in the first place. If you don't own it, T4 is a progression one and amazing with Ophelia and Defense ability, side armor brushes off T15 missiles even. Scouts... Sphinx is garbage because of the missile bug. Shadow is... Incredibly situational, a good player or platoon will nuke it though. Kornet can be extremely deadly but situational as well, it will suck quite hard on Narrows for instance. TDs... Once again, no unarmored TD. Ffs. No. MGM, Cent 120, Draco, Wilk... They all get matched against a T15. Except a T15 can push into cap and defend it on its own with armor/firepower/hp, something a Wilk can't do. I'm sometimes in comms and sometimes not, with one of the platoonmates and not the other one, very rarely with both. Winning may also require strong brain usage... One of those PL01 games we won by 7 points, because I had my blood cold enough to stop myself going for a suicidal reset, which would have removed 25 points from our team. That's right, I let them cap on purpose and remained alive, so we wouldn't lose 25 points and we won by 7. Being a damage whore, I almost felt actual pain in not rushing in, but it was the correct decision. All of the above, a new player just simply has no idea about. And there's a lot more, but that's the basics.

My general feeling about the PTS is that the changes reduce or even remove incentives to improve your gameplay and promote a more passive and arguably less enjoyable playstyle. Furthermore, the PTS arguably does not achieve the stated goals of reducing vehicle imbalance. I see this in a few ways that I'm going to list out and explain. 1) HEAT Changes I'm first going to outline how HEAT more or less currently works. HEAT damage is based off of 3 values, the armor thickness of where you're hitting, the RNG damage roll of your shell, and the RNG penetration roll. If the penetration roll is more than the armor thickness, you do damage based on the RNG damage roll (HEAT-MP is an exception). HOWEVER, you get a bonus based on how much your penetration roll is higher than the armor thickness. This means that hitting thinner armor will generally reward you with more damage up to a point. This is where the maximum bonus damage stat on HEAT rounds comes in. With HEAT-MP, you'll deal some damage even if you don't penetrate. What does this mean though? This means that you get more damage for hitting weaker armor. This is an incentive for learning weakspots, being patient by waiting for bots to turn, and practicing your aim which will improve your gameplay. Let's compare this to the current PTS system where HEAT damage is flattened. Learning weakspots is no longer comes with additional incentives to improve your gameplay. The ability to instantly change ammo also makes this worse. Instead of trying to manually find weakspots, you can just swap to AP to lolpen MBTs through their LFP. Speaking of MBT LFPs, 2) Armor Layout Changes Once again, I'll start by explaining how the current armor layouts are generally structured. MBTs will typically come with multiple weakspots from the front. I'll give some examples. The T-14 has a LFP and turret ring. The XM1A3 has a weakspot under the mantelet and a vulnerable hull. The CATTB has multiple strips along the hull front that can be penetrated (with some difficulty) and a viewport on the top of the turret. The ATDU has a weak strip along the LFP and a driver's port weakspot. Notice how tanks mostly have multiple weakpoints that are placed around the front of the vehicle. What does this mean though? This means that every vehicle has a semi unique armor layout that is generally distributed around the vehicle. This means that each vehicle has unique weakspots that you have to work around. It is incentivized to learn armor layouts of each individual vehicle so you can find the weakspots faster. Let's compare this to the current PTS system where MBT armor schemes have been adjusted. If you look though each vehicle, you'll see a pattern. Everything is red except for a green strip along the bottom of the vehicle. The LFP is now a universal weakspot. While this on it's own would be fine, it also comes with a removal of all other weakspots. The T-14 turret ring is now virtually invulnerable. The XM1A3 has lost it's weakspot under the mantelet. The only exception is the Leopard 2AX which has kept its weakspot under the mantelet. There is now less of an incentive to learn weakspots and spend time studying armor layouts because every MBT essentially follows the same formula of weakspots. Speaking of studying armor layouts, 3) Fuel Tank Removal Fuel tanks are one of three fire sources on a vehicle. Considering the RNG nature of engine fires, fuel tanks can be considered to be one of two consistent sources of fire. By studying armor layouts, you can learn where to shoot a vehicle to destroy fuel tanks or ammo racks to set enemies on fire. What does this mean though? This rewards careful aim and experience with the potetial to set fires that can drastically increase a vehicle's damage potential. This is a further incentive for properly aiming shots and targeting modules. With the removal of the fuel tank, it is now more difficult to set enemies on fire since the number of consistent sources of fire has been cut in half. This reduces the incentive to learn module placement as you will be rewarded with additional fire damage less often. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These 3 issues are the biggest ways I can see the 0.33 PTS undermining incentives to improve gameplay. I'm going to move on to how I can see the 0.33 PTS changing the meta negatively. 1) MBT armor With the armor layout changes, the LFPs of MBTs were often weakened and expanded, especially on frontline MBTs such as the ATDU. This will most likely result in more passive MBT play, despite the intentions of the developers. This will be compounded by the AP penetration fall-off at long range. MBTs are incentivized to hold positions where their weakspots are hidden and harder to penetrate at range. This will result in less MBTs being willing to push out and expose their weakspots in order to play aggressively. 2) Chip damage The ability for ATGMs to constantly do damage even on non-penetrations is a massive pain. This once again disincentivizes good play by making it impossible to completely avoid damage. The existence of chip damage in PvE already existed when BMP-3s fired HE and still exists as Ramka-99s still fire thermobaric ATGMs. Chip damage makes constant aggressive play difficult in PvE as you will constantly be losing health whenever you expose yourself to deal damage. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Potential influences on gameplay are all theoretical until all vehicles are released on the 0.33 PTS and such. As such, I won't spend too much time on it and I'll start talking about imbalances I see and gripes I have with individual tanks and mechanics. 1) HEAT-MP vs. HEAT-FS & HEAT-T HEAT-MP might as well stand for HEAT-MyPenis because MBT HEAT-MP is highly inadequate. While the logic of reducing HEAT-MP damage to compensate for damage on non-penetrations does make sense, it is taken too far with HEAT-MP. In virtually all cases on MBTs (mainly NATO MBTs), HEAT-MP will have identical damage to AP. Compared to the massive HEAT damage dealt by HEAT-FS and HEAT-T, HEAT-MP is honestly useless. The best comparison is probably between the 140mm cannons on the XM1A3 and the 99A2-140 which use HEAT-MP and HEAT. The XM1A3 HEAT-MP has 900 damage and 940mm of penetration. Meanwhile, the 99A2-140 HEAT has 1240 damage and 950mm of penetration. Losing out on over 300 damage for the ability to do 180 damage on non-penetrations is a pathetic trade and results in a shell that is about as potent as the semen of an 84 year old man. In fact, the XM1A3 HEAT-MP is also beaten by the Leopard 2AX's 130mm HEAT-T shells that have 1100mm of penetration and 1025 damage. Even if the 2AX and 99A2-140 HEAT shells will not deal damage if they don't pen, this is not an issue for experienced players and only results in the XM1A3 not being a competitive vehicle at higher skill levels. 2) The Tragedy of Darth ATDU Where to start with the poor ATDU. Not only did it lose its frontal protection with the addition of a massive LFP, the side armor is now worthless as well. Whether the side armor is unintentional or not is honestly still up in the air. But possibly the greatest tragedy is the loss of the ATDU's only gimmick. The ATDU used to be the only high tier vehicle with a viable HESH round. Not anymore. The extra penetration the PISH shell receives is not enough to offset the massive drop in alpha damage and the loss of the ability to go through cage armor. Even if the PISH shell can now brute force through a Merkava 4M's UFP, it doesn't matter if the shell no longer has the module damage that allowed it to brutalize ammo racks and other internal modules. During the PTS, I platooned up with 4 other people in various vehicles. The ATDU now ammoracks people more consistently with AP than PISH. PISH is truly PISS now. 3) T-15 Buffed The armor changes in the 0.33 PTS also applied to the T-15. If you recall, turret ring weakspots were buffed on most vehicles. Based on gameplay in both the vehicle testing area and in PvE, the turret ring on the T-15 has been buffed to the point of being impenetrable by 2AX HEAT rounds. Most experienced PvE players will know that the turret ring of the T-15 is the best place to shoot a T-15 for the sole reason that the ammo rack is located directly behind it. While the frontal hull is technically easier to penetrate considering the penetration buffs across the board, you are now unable to reliably light a T-15 on fire from the front which will increase the time required to kill a T-15. Side armor is weaker but thats pretty irrelevant considering side armor was always weak. 4) 10 inch shAFT In 0.32, the AFT has a maximum damage of 1128 assuming you get maximum penetration damage bonus and maximum damage roll. It also comes with 1400mm of HEAT penetration which is the highest HEAT penetration in game. As if this wasn't powerful enough, the AFT-10 now has ATGMs that chunk you for 1200 damage on average with 1500mm of HEAT penetration. Furthermore, these ATGMs will chunk you for 240 damage even if they don't penetrate. Considering you get a magazine of 8 ATGMs with 3.53s between shots and a 34s reload for all 8, the AFT-10 is about as balanced as a paraplegic on a unicycle. 5) ATGM Spam ATGMs are probably the strongest ammunition in the 0.33 PTS. They have the HE effect of HEAT-MP with doing damage on non-penetrations. They get some of the highest penetration values in the game. They get bonus module damage for having HEAT warheads. They can also be manually guided. Even with the numerous APS systems in game, ATGMs will most likely be dominant in PvE and PvP. During the PTS, I platooned up with 4 other people in various vehicles. One of those vehicles was the Merkava 4M firing only LAHAT ATGMs. This sounds ridiculous until you realize that the LAHAT ATGM has the highest penetration at 1200mm and best damage at 690 (besides for HE) of all the ammunition types. This also applies to the T-14's ATGMs which have the same alpha of the HEAT shells despite having 300mm more penetration. And we were making fun of the bots for spamming ATGMs in 0.32. 6) Limited Uptime Probably the biggest bug I've seen is the fact that the 0.33 PTS is only active for 4 hours a day. This is a very strange bug and it is potentially gamebreaking for certain player bases. Literally 2 minutes after I posted this, the schedules got changed. It is now 6 hours a day on weekdays and 3 hours a day on weekends. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would have put in screenshots of vehicle stats but the PTS isn't up right now and I genuinely can't be fucked to wait for it to come back or to dig around on Discord for screenshots.