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Lots of stuff, I tried to truncate the uninteresting bits but there's still a ton of mildly interesting answers. MBT side armor being homogenized as steel (losing the extra armor from tracks and add-on blocks) is intended. MBTs are not intended to be more mobile than lights, this is still being looked into. AGDS missiles having a ~50m minimum range is intended for balance. No new dealer this year. No plans for next year yet. TDs not having fast ammo swap is intended because balance, and players "generally have more time" (note: MIGHT be true if said players exclusively sit at the back of the map, which brings their competency into question) Vehicle balance will continue to be tuned throughout 0.33. 0.34 will feature bigger balance changes based on data and feedback. 0.34 will come this year. (note: possibly November/December for the next BP) MM changes did not happen with the high tier rebalancing. ATGM chip damage is intended to counter long range hulldown invulnerability and reward players for hitting things. The chip damage isn't effective in PvP. (note: if it has that little effect in PvP, why add it in the first place?) Excessive drifting may be bugs. The next Raid will have adjusted missions, but the mechanics will be the same as the previous one. (note: which means nothing of value will be lost if people ignore the whole thing just like last time.) Abrams and Challenger series having their armor characteristics swapped (Abrams having much better armor now) is intended.The The current armor configuration of Challenger series is intended. MBT armor being homogenized and made boring is because "the developers wish it so". Devs want to change the meta from learning weakspots to simply checking distance and swapping ammo. (note: literally removing skill from the game) Custom decals in 2021, maybe. (note: just mod them in yourself) Arty in PvP got shelved, at least until 0.34. Move command for infantry is canned. Direct fire command is being developed. No plans to monetize player avatars and titles, not worth it. New PvE missions in late 2020 or early 2021. HE mechanics got changed, but it's not described in the patch notes and even SS isn't sure about it. (note: what's the point of patch notes then?) Skill-based gameplay "got us nowhere". (note: not sure if this is SS's opinion or fact. Either way it matches the trend of gameplay being dumbed down.) No plans to accelerate account progression (ie. grinds), the progression is already fast enough as it is. ATGM reload animations are expensive and complicated to develop, requiring maybe one month of work per vehicle. No plans to add daily overviews (ie. WoT-style session logs). Not needed due to the low amount of matches played daily (2-5) for the typical player. No plans to improve infantry movement animations, too expensive and not important enough. 0.33 was deemed "sufficient" after PTS2 for release. The release is also partially forced by deadlines and milestones. (note: this confirms my suspicion of the operator holding the reins on the devs.) Overall feedback for 0.33 is positive, there will be no rollbacks. No plans to change SPG mechanics. Abrams series will be remodeled, and possibly the T-80U next. Tracked vehicles not losing much speed on turning is intended "to make gameplay more dynamic" (note: someone also said the same thing about arty in WoT promoting "dynamic" gameplay) The upcoming PvP map Al Dabbah will be "really big". Soft kill APS is being investigated, but the increased missile noise is intended "to make [hits] feel rewarding". (note: so literally reward mechanics based on RNG) One reason for the 0.33 changes is to "make the game feel more fresh". (note: different, yes. Fresh, probably not.) MBT side armor being largely invulnerable to autocannons is intended. Spec ops is over, no more spec ops. (note: this is the 3rd time someone asked this IIRC, read the previous Q&As) AI behavior will get tweaked. Wheeled bots soon, hopefully. SS would like to see a good storyline without the Enigma stuff, more PvE and less PvP. (note: one can dream) No plans for smaller team sizes in PvE (including spec ops). Bradley TOW launcher never elevated. (note: false. See Salter & Morey, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle Procedures Guides: Evaluation, Appendix D, pg. 34 & 46. Link below.) Bradley TOW launcher never had elevation/depression in the game. Some HE shells aren't tuned properly, probably related to the undocumented HE mechanic changes. MBT meta is intended. Some HEAT shells retaining their bonus damage are not intended, will be fixed. Ranked Battles disallowing platoons of mixed battalion members are intended, in order to promote large battalions. TD autocannons having double shot (ie. twin barrel Termi series) is a bug. Low tiers will also be rebalanced. No new heroic maps. Not worth it, maybe next year, maybe not. Launcher elevation/depression in-game is only considered for vehicles that have the ability IRL. (note: didn't they say the same thing last year about the T-15 fixed launchers being intended, then added launcher movement anyway?) The current contract reward lootbox is still the Eastern Crate. No plans to nerf HESH/PISH. The current gameplay feels more "dynamic", akin to pre-0.19. Devs are not keen on adding back the Wiesel 20mm. Devs prefer to add interesting vehicles, such as having multiple turrets or other interesting mechanics. Each game season will become very long. Spirithaven started in February and will end later this year. Infantry skins are very expensive and lack monetization potential. Enigma's Legacy performed "surprisingly well". (note: if they mean more players spent money, maybe.) The next PvE mission will use a modified spec ops map. Raw dump: Salter & Morey, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle Procedures Guides: Evaluation https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA138578.pdf See Appendix D, pages 34 and 46 for operation procedures for elevating/depressing the TOW launcher.

This pissed me off so much. I have no idea who's in control/in charge of these changes in direction, but whoever it is clearly thinks the AW community is far stupider and lazier than they are in reality. Ubisoft fucked up Ghost Recon in this exact same manner, severely limiting game concepts, mechanics, equipment, and even strategies to hand-hold players who just wanted an interesting, versatile, and well-executed realistic tactical shooter experience. This opened up the game(s) to be far more accessible to a wider audience, with Wildlands selling well, despite the critical media and community feedback. But as the timeless adage goes: "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". Breakpoint was catastrophic for both Ubisoft and the Ghost Recon franchise, because instead of listening to valid and well-intentioned community feedback, Ubi Paris doubled-down on simplifying gameplay and adding gimmicks no one wanted. I see AW heading down this same rabbit hole, with "Wildlands" arriving in the form of Balance 2.0 and "Breakpoint" being 0.33. Pursuing game balance is a valiant cause for sure, but implementing such a drastic and unnecessary overhaul without consulting the playerbase is negligent and reckless. When 0.33 was announced, I'll admit I had high hopes, even excitement to a degree, as I envisioned it to be the equivalent of R6S' Operation Health update. However, as the PTS went live, the many issues and unwarranted changes immediately brought me back to reality. The postponement of PTS stage 2 was a good sign on the part of the development team, and when stage 2 launched, I found that several issues from PTS 1 were in fact fixed, while others were acknowledged with improvements promised. This brought back some of my optimism, only for it to be smothered under the oozing, bloody corpse of 0.33 as it was shortly released on live. What's worse is that instead of these changes bringing in more players and opening up AW to become more accessible, AW's playerbase will shrivel and decline. Games such as AW, WT and even WoT are niche by nature, so player retention is crucial. There will not be any third chances; 0.33 will not attract new players, it will not improve the QoL of existing players and it certainly won't be a step in the right direction for the game as a whole. In AW's case, it was already a project on its last legs. With 0.33, I expect the game to bleed out entirely if the management are still unable to recognize and rectify their foolish decisions.

Honestly, I think the issue with the K2's magazine loader should be added to the list of concerns about update 0.33. The magazine loader (which was already the strongest all-round gun option of the K2) received a ~20% DPM increase while the single shot and ready rack options only received a 5% increase rendering them largely irrelevant. Since I always feel like it is a waste to have things in a game that nobody uses because they are completely useless, I'm going to recommend a few possible changes that could be made to the K2's other gun options to make them relevant again. The basic idea is each gun should have a defined use case: The single-shot gun has no burst capacity, and therefore has the use case of sustained DPM The ready rack should not be able to get close to the single shot gun in DPM, and should instead focus on some form of burst damage The magazine loader should also focus on some form of burst damage If we assume that the current DPM for the magazine loader is the upper limit of what is deemed "acceptable" by the developers, the single shot gun should have its reload time dropped by at least 1 second to 6.50 seconds (which would give sustained RoF and DPM of 11.17 and 6925, respectively). If the magazine loader is to be left in it's current state as a hybrid burst/sustained option, that means that the ready rack should occupy a niche dishing out burst damage. To this effect, the overall DPM of the ready rack option is less of a concern than how fast it can fire the first few shells in an engagement. As such, I would recommend increasing the capacity of the ready rack by 1 (allowing it to fire between 4 and 6 shots depending on the setup) and reducing the cyclical reload time by at least 1 second to 3 seconds. With these changes, the minmaxing table would look like this: I think this would be a much better state for the K2 to be in, as it would give all of the gun options a purpose that a player could base their playstyle around. That said, I think that the magazine loader should get a nerf in the form of a longer reload time (about 18 seconds seems about right if it is supposed to be a hybrid burst/sustained gun option).

0.33 Update: Due to popular request (literally 1 person asked for it), I am updating my K2 minmaxing table for update 0.33, since a new update should mean new minmaxing setups. Changes in 0.33 to the K2 include: The 120mm AP round getting buffed to 620 damage The magazine loader getting an extra shot (3 instead of 2) With this in mind, my K2 minmaxing table changes as follows: The same rules apply to this version table as the original table from the K2's pre-release. What does all this mean? Not much, really. About the only thing that changed is that the magazine loader went from being noticeably stronger than the other gun options to being the strongest gun option on the K2 bar none. The single shot option is still decent (or at least not terrible), but is overshadowed by the magazine loader while the ready rack now has no valid reason to exist on the K2 because the magazine loader does everything the ready rack does, but better.