knutliott

As near as I can tell... it isn't. Whatever it is seems to be bugged. I have new vehicles that don't have an efficiency rating, and older ones that do (or did). At one point all of my efficiency ratings disappeared, then came back changed. So... who knows?

Except that the 3 game modes are not equal - PvE is 75% even during prime time, and 90-95% during off peak times (stats posted by SS earlier in this thread). So even if Ophelia were the only commander ever used in PvP and GLOPS, she's still be used less than half of the time overall. But yes, the correct answer is to buff other commanders to make them more viable. As offensively powerful as Cortez and Douglas are in PvE, they're still only ~10% bonuses in total. They're about as powerful as a level 2 retrofit. Buff other commanders to where they're viable options and the game will get more interesting.

It is very, very difficult for them to nerf Ophelia because people paid real money to get her. That'd be like moving a Premium vehicle down in Tier - you paid for something that is now less valuable. I get that she's OP in PvP and/or GLOPS, but honestly she's fine in PvE. I don't even use her all that much anymore. GLOPS isn't a good argument for nerfing her. As SS said elsewhere, GLOPS has inherent problems caused by the fact that you get to respawn over and over. If they can find a way to tweak her so that she's not so toxic in PvP, but not really affect her at all in PvE, then that'd be fine. But fixing the GLOPS problem would likely be difficult to do without making her - a very expensive Premium commander - nigh useless in PvE. And that would be a very bad thing to do.

LOL... well done. :-)

PvE plays very differently than PvP, mostly because the bots don't have the same aiming and firing mechanics as players. Bots have near perfect aiming, so if they can see you and aim they will almost always hit and do damage. However, they're kinda dumb and can often be tricked into firing while you're still behind cover or hull down. This is particularly annoying when it comes to ATGMs, because as JintoLin said soft kill APS is not very effective against bots. That's because the bots can react at computer speed to correct the wandering of the ATGMs, effectively completely nullifying soft kill APS. It's best to never sit completely still while engaged. Move your vehicle forward and backward very slightly - this causes the suspension to rock making it much more difficult for bots (or players) to aim at your weak spots. You can also wiggle back-and-forth left-and-right for a similar effect, but it's not as effective against bots because the weakspots on vehicles tend to be wide slots that are only a pixel or two high. Wiggling doesn't really affect aim that much, whereas rocking has a dramatic effect.

You mean besides this one? https://discord.gg/hk6zY7 (Labs Community Discord)

I only play PvE, but despite that I didn't automatically vote for PvE. I lack sufficient information to make an informed vote - specifically, what's the balance of revenue look like? If the game needs both modes to survive, then by all means keep supporting both modes. But if PvP is a smaller portion of revenue, then concentrate on PvE (by focusing on PvE you will increase that revenue, hopefully countering any loss of PvP revenue). The opposite does not seem true - despite years of AW trying to coerce PvE players to play PvP or GLOPS, we're still not doing it so if you cut PvE in favor of PvP I suspect that you'll just lose that revenue. You'd definitely lose mine - I'd just find another game. PvE is what makes AW interesting. I understand the people who say it is boring even though I don't agree with them (I find PvP boring), but if more effort was focused on PvE - improving the bot AI, for example - then much of that criticism could be dealt with. Balancing for PvP is a never-ending effort, and requires significant time investment to get right. A company focusing on PvP gains by not having to create as many assets and content (in theory), but loses due to the more rigorous balancing effort. (The players are the content, or so the theory goes.) Balancing for PvE is easier simply because the players aren't playing directly against each other. Vehicles need to be roughly comparable, but as AW's existing PvE demonstrates a good player can do well in just about any vehicle. The main balancing concern is toning down the outliers so that they're not OPAF. Content is actually necessary regardless. The game needs a steady stream of new vehicles and new maps regardless of mode. The maps for PvP - as with the vehicles - require significantly more rigorous balancing to ensure that both teams have a reasonably equal chance, whereas the maps for PvE require more of a built-in story or progression. As AW already demonstrates, maps for PvE can be re-used effectively. It's not impossible to do that for PvP as well, but it's significantly more difficult due to the balance tuning. Doubtful. The toxicity in PvP comes from the fact that it is PvP. It's juveniles feeling a need to compare e-peen sizes, and then getting angry when their e-peen doesn't measure up. I suspect the vast majority of those players would find another PvP game to play rather than switching to PvE where no one cares how big your e-peen is. Also, I suspect that the toxicity you see in PvE comes from toxic PvP players playing PvE. They can't satisfy their need to be dominant through beating others in the game, so they resort to toxic behavior to scratch that itch. Note that I'm only talking about active toxic behavior - kill stealing isn't toxic behavior... it's not even a thing in a cooperative game. (There's no point - kills are a negligible component of your final score.) Shot blocking is 99% accidental, not toxic behavior. Sure, there's occasional toxic behavior in PvE, but honestly I've encountered it maybe 2-3 times in the last 6 months. And it's really easy to ignore in PvE because it just doesn't matter.

Yep, it's fixed. I can't say for sure that bots prioritize shooting at infantry, but they definitely do shoot them now. If I'm being shot at mine seem to last for a while, but if I'm not being shot at they get wiped out pretty quickly. So it may just be that bots will prioritize a player if available... or maybe my sample set is just too small to know for sure right now.

FYI - the contract was just completed. I was online and got a message, so we now have 7 days to choose the next contract.

I'm ambivalent about all of the above. The only part that affects me is the Hades vehicle, and I'm happy with the current one being the M8-120. I never got the T-90MS, so don't really care what we move to from the M8-120.

Yeah we'll have to test it and see. I hadn't been playing anything with Mech Inf for a while so hadn't even realized that there was a bug until yesterday. Sure made for some high infantry damage scores last night! LOL

I have tested it, and it is crap. The problem is that they've designated the Abrams line to be their "all stats are average" vehicle. I'm sure their intent is to make it a fine all-around vehicle, but that's not how games work. Other vehicles have things that they're good at that they can work to exploit, while also having things that they're bad at that they can avoid or try to mitigate. But an "all average" vehicle isn't good at anything. It's just... meh. There's nothing that a good player can work to exploit, so even in the hands of a good player it's still... meh.

Today's impressions: HEAT-MP is garbage compared to HEAT. (Compared via XM1A3 vs 99A2-140.) It's a nerf to any vehicle that carries it, because AFAIK no vehicle is able to choose between HEAT and HEAT-MP. It's still slightly better than AP most of the time, so my loadout for the XM1A3 probably won't change, but the nerf to HEAT-MP is a pretty severe nerf to the XM1A3. Also as feared, the XM1A3 isn't good at anything since it's their "all average" prototype. "All average" stats mean bad, because it means the vehicle isn't good at anything. A vehicle that is "good" at one thing and "bad" at another can work to exploit what it's good at and mitigate what it's bad at. A vehicle that is "average" at everything can't do that and so just feels bad all around. ATGMs (tested on AFT-10 and Hellfire) don't feel like they've been nerfed in any way to me. In fact they feel like they're better than before, which we 100% absolutely do not need or want in PvE. Chally green ammo is now pathetically bad. Your loadout is now 100% AP because PISH and HESH suck donkey balls.

Anecdotal, but it seems like PELE is been improved, at least on the Hunter. It's possible that I'm just seeing what it's doing now because of the improvement to the enemy damage display in the UI, but it also feels like PELE simply out-classes AP for the Hunter now. It always did for other vehicles, but for the Hunter it was a difficult decision for me. I kept tweaking my loadout one way or the other, never more than 300/700 or 700/300, and just never felt satisfied. Granted I only managed 4 games on the PTS today, but I'm switching to 100/900 AP/PELE now because it's simply superior. The 100 AP are retained for those rare occasions where they might be useful, but honestly with as good as PELE is now in the PTS I'm not sure those rare occasions exist anymore.

It seems to me that HEAT-MP should not trade top-end damage for its bonus, it should trade penetration. I.e. compared to the 99-A2's HEAT which has 1240 damage and 950mm of pen, the XM1A3's 140mm HEAT-MP should be something like 1240 damage and 925mm of pen. As Bob said, the advantage of being able to do 180 damage on non-penetrations is very minimal, almost to the point of being pointless. Given the current test server stats, I'd MUCH rather have HEAT than HEAT-MP, and that's backwards. HEAT-MP is a more advanced shell and so should be more desirable.

Overhauled the reloading mechanism animations for the vehicles that have them. For you, not much should change visually but the system now works smoother, is more stable and the animation time now corresponds to the intended reload time listed in the UI This is huge for the vehicles that were affected by this bug. Some of those animations took as much as 5 seconds that wasn't counted as part of the reload.

Yeah, I know. Tracking targets also works. The hierarchy is Designate > Tracking/Disabling > Spotting. The fact that the grindiest missions are basically only doable in SpecOps is why I suggested that PvE and SpecOps should have separate requirements just like PvP and GLOPS. There's also a huge difference between "doable" and "reasonable goal for an event." Sure, 35k damage in PvE (not SpecOps) is doable but it's not a reasonable goal for an event, even if you do it in Spec Ops. Especially 10 times. That's an insanely random grind for a time-limited event. You basically have to take the most OPAF vehicles, luck into the right map, and get a team full of potatoes (but not idiots) in order to pull it off. Also remember that it's poor game design to design goals in an event that can only be completed by the best of the best. These should be feasible for average players. Not easy, but at least reasonably possible for average players to complete. None of the final chain's missions qualify by that metric - they're all insane and basically require that you get a group together to help you complete them. Some of them multiple times. And I would argue that several of the 2nd half mission for the first 2 chains also don't meet that metric. Anything above 25k damage in PvE is beyond the capabilities of most players even in SpecOps. So is anything above 10 Eliminations or 20 kills. Those are things an average player just can't do, which means they're not reasonable goals for an event like this. And yes, I get it. The real goal (from AW's perspective) is to get people to pay gold to skip those missions. That basically makes it even worse, because it's such a blatant cash grab.

Actually, that's kind of exactly what I was getting at. Your stats are worse than mine, so the bots don't treat you the same way they treat me. Note that I don't believe that stats are a very good indicator of how good a player actually is. They're pretty easy to manipulate, and in some cases are just straight-up worthless. (Accuracy, I'm talking about you.) So despite what our compared stats look like, I think you're clearly a better player than I am. But if the bots think that I'm better because my stats are better, do they treat me differently? "Play harder" against me than they do against you? I love watching these videos and I think it's super cool that you guys were able to pull this off... but I'm also just amazed at how differently the bots behave in those games than they do in mine. Or at least it seems like they behave differently.

The T-15 was originally an AFV. I never completely understood why it was changed to a TD, but the reality is that it (and its Terminator siblings and Terminator-like cousins) are a class all their own. They need to be balanced on their own regardless of which class they're wedged into in AW. And that means that they can't continue to have best-in-tier class ATGMs, best-in-tier class Autocannons, and near-MBT level armor. That has always been a recipe that spells OPAF.

I try not to "play hard" when I play lower tiers, though that changes when AW gives me a mission to complete and I have no choice. Seems like one of the favorites during Enigma's Legacy was to tell me to get 400,000 damage using a Tier 3-6 AFV. Well... that's gonna be my Sgt York and people are going to hate me. Thanks AW! But generally if I'm playing lower tiers, I play casually and actively try to support the other players. I want them to enjoy the game, learn, and get better.

Several topics in one post... I'd meant to come back and post when I got it, then forgot. IIRC I got my Hunter from 42 crates (plus the 4 completed special crates). The first set of 10 provided 30 parts, then when the second and third sets each provided 15 I was convinced that the first set is rigged to sucker you in. But then the 4th set provided 28 parts giving me 88 total. The miracle was the 42nd crate which had 10 parts in it all by itself. (The 41st obviously contained 2.) I also have the Type 10 and while I'm not "disappointed" with it, I can 100% understand why others are. IDGAF so play it like a heavy TD or heavy LT, but that sometimes means that I piss off my teammates when I'm the only MBT on the team. Tough. I'm not going to suicide trying to play it like the MBT it isn't just because the matchmaker is broken. It would be better if it were visually obvious when your NERA has been depleted, but I've looked for it and just can't tell. (Same complaint about the Hunter.) It makes a nice backup MBT or heavy TD - it can really dish out the damage and in that respect totally out-classes a fully upgraded K2. 4 shots with an 11-ish second reload vs 3 shots with a 10-ish second reload isn't even fair, and that's totally not counting the sub-2 second intra-clip rate on the Type 10 vs the 2.67-second rate on the K2 (optimal DPM build). My understanding is that the K2 allegedly has better armor, but I really can't tell a difference against bots. They both get eaten alive. So yeah, expect a Type 10 nerf as it completely out-classes the K2. Lastly, I think the mission chains need work. There are several issues here. First, the requirement to use Battle Path vehicles. Not a terrible idea in and of itself, but for it to work the BP vehicles have to be very carefully chosen (or the mission requirements have to be chosen to fit the available vehicles). I don't feel like this was well done for Enigma's Legacy, because I basically had to wait until I had the two end-game reward vehicles before I could make significant progress through the chains. If this is to be a requirement in the future, the chains should probably require a specific vehicle so that the missions can be tailored to that vehicle. The Support chain (requirements are to get spotting damage) is by far the best of the 3 chains, and is the only one that I don't feel needs fixing. The spotting damage requirements aren't extreme, but are hard enough that they do require that you actually try to complete them (as opposed to them just happening as you play). At least for me, anyway. And the 2 "weird" missions along the way were totally doable if you planned carefully and picked the right map. (Spot X before taking damage, spot X before being spotted.) For example, I can get the 8k-10k spotting damage requirements done fairly regularly as long as I'm concentrating on that task. But as a counter-point, it doesn't matter how hard I try to get 15 Eliminations in a single match... that's just not going to happen unless I get lucky or my teammates are potatoes. Same for 30k (and 35k) damage in PvE. And the "weird" missions in those chains either require match rigging with a platoon, or you have to get pretty lucky. Get the first 3 kills in a match certainly does happen occasionally, but it isn't your skill that matters - what matters is how bad your teammates are. Getting the first 3 kills and they have to be eliminations is just crazy to hope for while playing solo. The problem as I see it is that the first 2 chains basically require that you rig a platoon to "cheat" your way through the last half of the chain, whereas the 3rd chain can be done solo by a good player who is specifically working on completing the chain. Yeah, yeah, the first 2 chains are easier if you do them in SpecOps. That itself is another problem - PvE and SpecOps should have separate requirements just like PvP and GLOPS. The final problem - which is subtle and basically hidden - is that the first 2 chains require you to be an asshole in missions if you're playing solo. Which, at least in my experience, seems to be the way that most people play. (Solo, not as assholes. Though you can make a good argument for the latter, too.) You have to ruin other peoples' games in order to complete your missions, which is really pretty horrible mission design. The 3rd chain actually encourages you to be a team player - spotting for your team makes the game more fun for everyone. So my helpful feedback for future Battle Paths looks like this: 1. PvE and SpecOps should have separate requirements. 2. Mission chains that require the use of Battle Path vehicles need to be tuned carefully so that they can be completed with the initially available BP vehicles. The easiest way to do this is probably to require a specific BP vehicle for each chain, but then make sure that you tune that chain to the capabilities of that vehicle. This has the happy side effect of allowing more diversity in the missions in each chain - they don't all have to be "do X damage" or "get Y kills". 3. Mission chain missions should encourage good team play like the Support chain does in Enigma's Legacy. Requirements to "do 25k+ damage" or to "get 25+ kills" force players to play selfishly which degrades the experience for everyone.

I watch those videos and I just can't believe what's going on. You guys pulled off things that I cannot do, and I don't mean "skillful" things. I mean that in exactly the same positions, I'd get raped by auto-pen enemies. every. damn. time. I don't mean that to discredit your skill in any way - you're both very, very good. It's just that the bots aren't doing things to you that they do to me in every game. In numerous places throughout the first video, I'd have been dead in 5 seconds. No question. At the first cap after the initial contact when one of the players charges around the corner to the right, straight into 3-4 enemies? Dead. Insta-dead. No fucking way I'd survive trying that. It's so beaten into me that I panicked and tried to back up while watching the video, then felt despair that I was going to die, then felt incredulous when that T-15 not just survived but did so basically unscathed. W. T. F??? In all seriousness, are we absolutely sure that your stats don't somehow affect the bots' performance against you in a match? Most of my stats are good, but not make-you-look-twice good. Win rate 91.8, survival rate 95.4, firing efficiency 11.5, defense efficiency 2.28, damage per match 15.5k, kills per match 9, spots per match 10. Pretty normal "good but not awesome" numbers. But my Battle Efficiency is 197, which is pretty awesome, and I sometimes get the feeling that it affects bots. They gang-bang me even when they're already engaged before I show up. They follow me with their guns even when I'm not spotted and behind hard cover while being shot in the ass by one of my teammates. I'm basically forced to play extremely conservatively in a support role to avoid being wiped from the map as soon as the first bots are encountered. And then I watch these videos and my reaction is that this simply isn't possible. I understand the maps, I understand the positioning, I understand all of the tactics being used... that's just not how the bots react when I'm in the match.

That feature was amazing in City of Heroes / City of Villains, but as you can probably guess it was abused pretty heavily when it was initially released. Once the devs got some regulation tools in place so that you couldn't design super-easy high-XP missions to power-level your characters, the creativity started to flow and the players created some really incredible missions. That said, the CoH/CoV feature was based on the very tools that the devs used to create missions in the first place, so it wasn't that difficult for them to modify those tools for use by players. I get the feeling that AW missions are basically built by hand from scratch every time, so it would be a massive undertaking to provide a user-created mission feature. Also, CoH/CoV maps were modular so it was much easier to create a custom map for a custom mission. You might be restricted to existing AW maps for a feature like this, which would make the feature less appealing.

Ideally they'd be doing a full Balance 3.0 so that they could move vehicles to different tiers, but given the fallout from Balance 2.0 I suspect that was never really in the cards. Moving vehicles to different tiers as needed would have allowed for non-ERA vehicles to move down to remain competitive. ERA in 0.33 sounds like a straight-up necessity to be balanced against same-tier vehicles. I.e. if one tank (among peers) has it then they all have to have it, or that one tank has to be something that would be weaker without the ERA and it's only because of the ERA that it manages to stay competitive amongst its peers. I don't have a great feel for how ERA is currently distributed within tiers, but I strongly suspect that it's pretty random. In 0.33, tanks with ERA are going to be pretty much superior to tanks without it provided they're otherwise similar.

All of the above. PvP is the Holy Grail of Free-to-Play games because the players themselves are the "content" for other players. Relatively speaking, it takes very little effort to support a F2P PvP game compared to a well-supported PvE game. The question that never gets answered, though, is what proportion of their revenue comes from PvE players compared to PvP players? They keep trying to push everyone to PvP, sometimes to the point of requiring PvE players to play PvP to complete objectives in contests, but is that actually wise based on their revenue? I would have to guess that it is (wise) - AW is a business after all, so even though 60-80% of games are PvE it may very well be that more-or-less casual PvE players simply don't pump as much money into the game as hard-core PvP players. Ergo, they need to spend their resources supporting PvP. Yeah I took one glance at that chart and immediately though that the Russian tanks look OP and that the Abrams line looks meh. I couldn't really bear to look at the other columns in any detail. I'm of course looking at it from a PvE perspective, but the reduced accuracy of the Russian line in no way counter-balances all of the other goodness in that line. The "new" meta for MBTs is that they're going to be short to medium range brawlers anyway, so who cares about accuracy?