JintoLin

I am Jack's total lack of excitement.

This sounds like another T-72B3, just like a progression vehicle but you have to pay real money for it.

20 hours ago, MK_Regular said:

Missiles are an entirely different beast when it comes to the AI. The missiles that the AI uses are the exact same missiles that players have access to, with the same maneuverability and the same venerability to soft-kill APS. However, the way the AI works pushes the performance of the missile to the extreme. The AI actually makes corrective commands to the missile many times per second, meaning that any potential factor that might cause the missile to miss (the player moved, the player's soft-kill APS tried diverting the missile) are accounted for near-instantaneously. This as far as I can tell, this is the only thing the AI does that cannot be replicated by a human player since the reaction time and amount of precision required are far beyond what any human is capable of. It might be possible to make the missiles less punishing for players by reducing the frequency that the AI corrects the missile's flight path, but this could very easily be overdone to the point where AI missiles are just unguided rockets.

That may be true, but the effect is that soft kill APS does not work the same way against bots as it does against player vehicles. That is the problem. You spend time and in-game credits to unlock a SK APS and it is worthless in PvE matches, most people play PvE, this makes those systems worthless. The has the effect of cheating many, if not most of the players.

20 hours ago, MK_Regular said:

I often see people complaining about "AI aim bot" without actually knowing what the AI does to achieve the accuracy that players experience. The AI does not "cheat" by removing the shot spread to make every shot pin-point accurate, nor does the AI reduce the accuracy penalties for moving or traversing to allow it to make unrealistic snap shots. All of my experience in the game indicates that the AI operates on the same set of rules that players have when it comes to making accurate shots, and that a player can theoretically duplicate any shot that a bot makes.

The "Aim bot" I am referring to is that they programed the bots to mimic what each human player desired result is with robotic speed and precision. They have the bots lock onto the desired point of impact as fast as a player can find that same point with their eyes, the only delay is for the vehicle to move the gun into position. The bots are running from the server, they don't have to deal with transmission lag from player computer, to the server, and back again. The bots don't have input lag that humans do with moving their hands and fingers to move the mouse or other input device to move the cross hair onto target, not to mention have to correct for moving to far and then over correction.  Some humans can get close to matching the output of the bots as far as accuracy goes, but they are outliers and cannot be counted. What they need to do is to have for the rank and file bots is have the effective accuracy and effect on target to be the same as a slightly below average human player. The LT class bots can be the same as a above average player but not one of the top tier players.

In both cases my issue is not with how the bots are doing things, it is the effect. Which in my opinion is the same effect as human players using cheats. 

Along with these changes they need to remove shared vision and aim bot for all AI vehicles. They also should fix the magic missiles that the AI uses to be affected by SK anti missile systems. They also need to bring the AI vision range down to the same as the player vehicles.

I am cautiously pessimistic about this.

I would not bet on bot spawns being disabled if you are to close, I have had spawn right next to me, both behind me and in front of me.

The picture you used from downfall makes it look like he it taking the biggest shit, which is not going well.

I am jack's complete lack of surprise.

Nice work using, as a certain belgian would say, using the little gray cells.

Will there be complementary razor blades?

The problem is with the core game play loop. AW is only a capture the flag game but with tanks. You are the attacker or defender. You either go to the point and capture the flag or you go to the point and defend the flag. Rinse and repeat 1million times. All these tasks do is give you something to do extra while going for the flag.

The AW dev team needs to add more game play loops.

2 hours ago, Haswell said:

Armor thickness, damage, hitpoints, penetration, view range, camo, all these stats are arbitrary gameplay values that bear little to no resemblance to real life. You also most certainly won't see vehicle-on-vehicle engagements at 300m and closer in real life, nor will you see a team of 5 vehicles mowing through several dozen enemy vehicles within 10 minutes.

I will also raise you the XM1A3 and 99A2, which are entirely fictional vehicles with corresponding fictional capabilities. Also physics-defying airships and flying drones.

I said basis for their in game meta. As far as the fictional vehicles as the XM1A3, that is concept version of a current vehicle, fits with the future setting of the game along with the airships. Given that the proto tanks are intended to be improvements on current tanks IRL, you can extrapolate stats based on the current tanks' in game meta stats. My biggest issues is that the AFV's are the kill and damage kings which they should not be. If we are using real life as a guide, then artillery should be the damage and kill kings. However arty would need spotters. More people would line up to play arty than the spotters. We all want to be the ones to make the kill, this is evident in current player actions.

13 minutes ago, Haswell said:

First off, AW is an arcade game and IRL arguments for game mechanics rarely apply. So let's just ignore that completely.

Then why even bother with using real life vehicles in the game at all. If that was the case they should just make all the tanks be fantasy tanks so you can make the balance meta what ever they want. Given that AW is using real vehicles in the game they have to use IRL capabilities as a basis for the in game stats meta.

Anime style waifus are always welcome.

12 hours ago, knutliott said:

The real point, though, is to reward MBTs for doing their job.  If you've ever played an MMORPG, "tanking" is a role in a raid where your entire job is to keep the attention of the monsters that you're fighting.  If the monsters are attacking you, they're not attacking your teammates who are squishy and can't handle being attacked by a raid boss.  The situation is similar in AW - the MBTs can handle being shot at by the bots, and so should be rewarded for attracting their attention.  That gives the other vehicles a clear opportunity to do their jobs, which in the end results in a victory for the team.

The job of an MBT is not just to soak up damage. The armor exist to allow the tank to get it's big ass gun in position to kill the enemy period. Evey other vehicle type is in support of the MBT, save maybe the LT. The LT only exists because you can't always get an MBT in location due to the weight of armor. So they stripped the armor off to try an get the MBT gun in position. The AFV's exists to get troops in position to capture things. The firepower on AFV's exist only to cover the troops, not engage enemy armor. The AFV's have limited ATGM ammunition, maybe only one reload.  Because AW is a game about killing hostile armor, if the balance is correct, the only class worth it's salt should be the MBT class.

Another thing AW messed up is ATGM's. Those weapons exist to allow non MBT's to engage MBTs but at long range. Given that AW has forces engagement ranges to under 300m ATGMs should be worthless, many don't arm the warhead until after the missile has traveled at least 150m.  

1 hour ago, knutliott said:

Primaries and Secondaries should provide some small reward to the player who completes them, not just a generic boost to the entire team, and that small reward should vary based on your vehicle type.  Capturing objectives (as Primaries) should reward the vehicles that sit there to do the capture.  Right now it's more rewarding to rush off and find more enemies to kill than it is to capture points, so greedy players ignore the primary objectives.  On the flip side, MBTs should not be wandering around completing secondaries - they need to be up front engaging the enemy - so any reward they receive for secondaries should be minimal.  However it makes perfect sense for LTs and AFVs to complete secondaries, so they should get a nice little bonus for doing so.

You should not have rewards based on vehicle type.  You also forget the team size difference. The players only have 5 tanks vs 10+ at any particular time, and the AI spawns based on mission progress. If you are working as a team you would need to have an MBT to go solo or with wingman to do a flanking run to help push to the cap point or taking the secondaries. That would have the MBT actually cap the point or get the secondaries. I mainly play MBT's and a lot of the time I am the only one completing the secondaries. Most people don't care about getting the secondaries. Most people are looking to get the most kills and not just for the rewards. The only point to most matches is to get the top kills, and or not die.

If you want to incentivize certain game play and team mix, you need more than just 5 players and have a dedicated server/game system. The random match making does not work for this. You could do this for a platoon that joins up and have a couple of different platoon size missions. In random PVE you cannot do that.

2 hours ago, Haswell said:

Yes, but you won't like to hear it.

• Separate PvE balancing from PvP. Yes it requires a lot of resources, but that's the price you pay for trying to support two separate game modes. It would be a lot easier if PvP just die.
• Make secondary objectives affect gameplay in meaningful ways. Right now most of them only give bonus credits and nothing else, make them affect the game more like extend objective timers or reduce the number of bot spawns. Spec ops had the right idea of tying secondary objectives with the special mechanics, now make them more meaningful so that it's in my best interest to NOT ignore them.
• Reduce the number of bots. It's not even challenging to kill your way to the objectives, it's just annoying to have half a dozen bots being thrown at you every other minute. It's like having a car race but also having traffic lights in your way that you have to obey.
• Increase the challenge of objectives. This ties with reducing the number of bots, make it so that the challenge is in completing objectives and not just mindlessly killing everything.
• Stop promoting the MBT meta. There's no point in playing squishies if MBTs can do everything better and faster.
• Scale the rewards better with performance. Make it so the rewards match the effort required to earn them, good players should earn more and bad players should earn less. AKA revert back to before the economy change in early 2019.

I like a target rich environment. What they need to do is reduce the godlike accuracy of the bots. The normal bots need to stop targeting weak spots. There needs to be an increase in the MBT meta. If you gear the game for the solo player with a few rando teammates you can only use MBT. If you want to use the squishy vehicles you will need to work as a team with an MBT. That is how it is IRL. The squishies are too powerful as is and need to be nerfed heavily.  No matter how skilled you are you should not be able to clear the hardest level map that is intended for 4 players and beat it with only 2 squishy IFVs.

I hate the drones and arty in the story missions. I have stopped playing them all together after the non-avoidable arty spam from the "Death star" in the last mission in the volcano.

They do a T7+ re-balance to get people to play more and enjoy the higher tiers more. Then they do this, punish you for playing those higher tiers.

This makes no sense.

Oh look another over powered russian vehicle. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

23 hours ago, Schlock said:

That's why there is a text "This offer not available to players in Belgium and Netherlands" whenever there's a new gambling offer on AW page. Kinda hoping rest of the world will follow their example and, if not ban gambling mechanics in video games, then at least make those games 18+.

But who am I kidding, with shit like FIFA and NBA going full gambling, no one will have the balls (heh) to do that.

Game companies have made exceptions for those countries because they are a small section of their player base. If the US or other larger countries classify loot boxes as gambling, game companies would be forced to make major changes.

The age limit would have to be higher than 18 is some countries. The US has banned gambling in most states, only a few zones allow gaming of the loot box type. You would need to verify that the player is playing the game in a gambling allowed zone. Also you will need a to have a way to verify the age of the person playing, that is hard to do in some countries due to privacy requirements. Also once loot boxes are recognized as gambling. This would add a whole slew of new laws and taxes to the games, AW included. Like in a casino, when you say win a car, you have to pay the taxes on the value of that car. So in say, AW when you win a tank or camo, you would have to pay taxes on those new assets. This would also force those in charge to fix prices for all the content on the games and have them listed. This would showcase the price inflation that happens with the loot box systems. Look at the tanks in AW, all are less than $100  if you buy that tank from the market place. How many have spent more that $100 on loot boxes for some of the premium tanks. When trying the slot machines for a chance to win a hot rod sports car that is worth $50k or more. Most people can see spending a few hundred at the slots for the chance as worth it. Winning that sports car could help you get laid, showcasing that you have a T14-152 in an online multiplayer game will not. Also some governments have other rules on gambling, like slot machines in Vegas, loot boxes act like slot machines. Vegas requires slot machine to payout money back to the player 75% of the time. The problem with games is there is a fixed amount of content that could be payed back to the player for every spin of the loot boxes.

It could also be due to the fact that several countries are actually treating look boxes as gambling and forcing changes on the games that have them.

Good to hear that loot boxes are not long for this world. I don't like and will not support gambling in games. Just put you wares out there with a price on it. If I want that item and I find the price reasonable I will buy, if not I will move on.

Given the vagueness of the marketing for this new content. Based on the previous realities of the last couple rounds of marketing promises turning into actual content that is "meh" at best. I am worried about this next "shoe" that will be dropping later this year.

You know if this keeps up they are just going to make the game harder.

50 minutes ago, Lt_Don_Shaljian said:

As it stands AW made it clear that every one had a "good chance" of winning the tier 9.  It is obvious, from the proliferation of complaints, that there was never a "good chance."  The "good chance" actually being offered will be a chance to spend good money on uncertain loot crates to finish the prize.  This carries a sting of disingenuousness.

The term "good chance" is relative. It could be a good chance compared to winning the jack pot on the lottery. They should, but never will unless forced, to release the actual percentages of wining each prize. So sadly the loot box system is just the new one armed bandit.

Well done lab rats.

And changes like this keep the "russian bias" reputation alive. To sum up the changes, buff the russians nerf all others.