Haswell

I hope not. The biggest appeal of Plague to me so far is that there's only one mission, and I don't have to complete any prerequisites before getting there. If I can't pick and choose what I want to play when I want to, I'd rather not play entirely. The beginning sequence of capping the ammo can be completed within 1 minute and less. Using myself for example, I regularly load in 30 seconds AFTER the mission clock starts running. The argument of late loaders shouldn't be playing sounds incredibly selfish to me. There are in fact other instances in the game where late loaders are heavily punished. Your initial spawn point on Tsunami gets swarmed by bots; a lieutenant and 2 other bots on Leviathan pushes directly into your spawn if they get triggered; you lose on Dire Wolf if you don't load in fast enough to defend the first cap point. These are things I want to see improved in order for the game to be more friendly to players, not doubled down on.

The current working theory is that this applies to every tier, 6 to 8. That is, your chances of getting the paltry gold drop (not full compensation) drastically increases if you own every possible drop within tier 6, 7 or 8. From what we think we know, the contract boxes will always drop a tier 6-8 premium vehicle that you don't already own (excluding the K21 I think), but only if you don't already own every possible drop at tiers 6 or 7 or 8. The hypothesized logic is that the boxes first check if you already own everything at any tier, and if you do it defaults to dropping gold instead of rolling to another tier that you may have missing vehicles. A reported experience is that someone who owned every tier 6 drop had received a 500 gold drop consecutively for 7 boxes, then immediately dropped a tier 7 premium on his next box after he sold off his Magach 7A. The practice of selling the crappiest tier 6 premium you have (people recommend Magach) comes from the fact that tier 6 appears to have a heavier drop rate than the other tiers. If you own everything at tier 7 or 8, you should also sell one of them in order to make room for another vehicle drop. My personal picks right now are the PTZ and the Stryker missile truck. Of course, this is all just theories with anecdotal evidence. But there are definitely some premium vehicles that you rarely or never play at tiers 6-8, so there's really no harm done if you sell one of them at each tier to potentially increase your chances of getting something good from the boxes. As I explained above, the gold you get from the boxes are far below the full compensation you normally get for receiving duplicate vehicles. Tier 6 is apparently only 500 gold, unsure about the other tiers but I suspect it wouldn't be any higher than 1500. MAYBE there's a case to be made for owning all possible tier 8 drops so you get a higher amount of gold from boxes, but I doubt a lot of people are at that point yet. The vehicle ownership XP multiplier suffer from diminishing returns after reaching +20% bonus (my dossier says I have 230 vehicles unlocked, and only a +34% bonus) and becomes wholly irrelevant once people no longer have the need to grind XP, such as from already finished grinding all the progression vehicles they want. For players who aren't at this point yet, chances are they also wouldn't already have enough premium vehicles for all this to be a problem.

Please don't be a mission chain. The appeal of PvE (and Plague, which is basically PvE) is that you can play any mission you want without having to suffer through multiple "chapters" to unlock the mission you want. Forcing people to do work, enjoyable or not, just to get back to one specific map is the primary reason I stay the hell away from spec ops in general. I wouldn't say mobility matters much. The corridor map design basically funnels you into static bot spawns, there is zero need for fancy maneuvers or positioning and there isn't enough room anyway even if you want to do so. The uncontrollable slide drop, ugh... It looks cool at the beginning, but you will very quickly hate it when you get repeatedly rammed into a corner and have to wait for others to move away. This will sound weird coming from me: Plague makes for a dull and boring Spec Ops mission, but works fairly well for normal PvE. The mission pace is nice, not too long to be a chore but also long enough to have a sense of challenge. My only critiques for the pacing are the beginning ammo collection caps and the ending, which involves a lot of sitting around waiting for the invisible timer. Everything in between is fine, player skill determines the pace as you can slowly clear everything out or speedrun if you want to. The claustrophobic corridor meta on the other hand heavily punish players for using vehicles without some degree of armor. This is where Plague falls short compared to other PvE missions, the map design does not allow squishy vehicles to even come close to the carrying potential of armored MBTs. Normal PvE missions such as Dire Wolf or Rolling Thunder (both which use portions of the same base map) in contrast, have more open areas and distance for squishy vehicles to utilize vision control and careful positioning, while still favoring MBTs for the easy way out. Good map design is hard, I know. At the same time good map design is a massive determining factor for how enjoyable the game can be. Plague has almost everything done acceptably except for map design, I'd rate its replayability potential to be very good if not for the corridor meta. You can only drive down the same alleyway so many times before you get bored, and wonder why every other path is blocked by rocks.

It's awful, that's all I can say about it even after the 0.33 rebalancing. Lower DPM than most tier 7 MBTs (because lack of HEAT) God awful mobility, actually slower than arty in both acceleration and top speed Size of a barn Mediocre camo, terrible view range No usable armor anywhere I honestly can't think of a single reason or situation why I would want to use the PTZ over literally everything else. I'll even take arty over it.

Issue "resolved as of 0.34.7512--2020-11-21_04:02, HQ screen behavior appears to have reverted back to the old system. That is, the active maps refresh properly every time you switch vehicles, but the timer is also broken.

Welcome!

Thoughts on tier 4-8 difficulty: Enemy vehicles fall under three main categories: unarmored, fragile tier 7-8 bot variants, and unadjusted tier 6 bots. Due to the 0.33 vehicle rebalance, any player using a tier 7 or 8 vehicle can easily stomp on any enemy they face. Thoughts on tier 9-10 difficulty: All enemy vehicles can be reliably damage frontally. Due to the map design being essentially one big corridor with very straightforward lines of fire, gameplay is boiled down to simply driving forward and removing enemies that appear in front of you. There is very little time pressure, very little risk of exposing your flanks, and plenty of frontal cover to utilize. In short, very easy and boring. Other stuff: The beginning blurb is a nice touch (and very cliche), but far too long and also partly unreadable because black text on black background. The list of objectives is far too long and covers up the kill feed. My screen resolution is 1920*1080 and it still manages to touch my minimap. Ammo collection caps at the beginning are wholly unnecessary and contributes nothing to gameplay. In fact, the beginning sequence is literally about how fast you can get to the bottom and start shooting at things. Not particularly fun or engaging, narrative plot devices shouldn't get in the way of gameplay. The map has over 50 enemies in total and very little time pressure. This makes it an excellent and reliable choice to complete missions that require farming damage or kills, especially since you can play it at any time without having to play through other chapters. Also has infantry to shoot at for that bloody contract mission. I won't call it Spec Ops, I'd rather call it a long PvE mission (which is the whole point). The overall difficulty is on par with PvE in general and slightly higher at times, but far lower than what I've been used to in other Spec Ops maps. Even so, corridor MBT meta bad.

Reposting here for visibility, discussion and free-form answers. https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/plague-special-operation-feedback-collection

Doubtful, all the game data points towards the 99A2 and not the 99A. If anything it would likely be similar to the T-14 Hades. Rental only from the ranked contract mission, two gun options so you can play the 140 if you want.

Data mined from the 0.34 client (bleh) suggests new Hades vehicles may be added soon, possibly as part of the "new battalion content" mentioned in the roadmap. Not shown is the Termi 2 Hades. Some people with long memories may recall these vehicles were revealed a long time ago during the original battalion contracts announcement (https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/developer-diary-battalion-contract-missions), but they got released without the upgrades mechanic. I did however find new (or previously overlooked) references to the upgrade mechanic, so I'm still uncertain whether they are legacy content or actually new. Thoughts? More Hades vehicles are almost certain to be coming soon, with or without the upgrades mechanic.

Added patch notes to OP. So much for "Abrams model is fine", they are finally fixed. I wonder how all the supporters of the fucked up models feel right now.

By induction. Contract vehicles usually last 6 months or so, as the PSP/ADATS/Type 89 had been. The Stalker is relatively new and only came out in October, it would be highly unlikely for it to go away only after two months. SS also confirmed this.

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-update-034 God help us all. Patch notes, late as usual. https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/apocalypse-season-now-available

Going to try getting through SH3 tonight. I have a feeling SH4 will actually be easier because there's no tower defense game.

Arta.

Blarg, big post. https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/development-echoes-war

I would rather the credit curve be flat and 1:1, but with possibly higher requirements such as 70k assist damage instead of 5k x10. This way the "challenge" will still be present but skilled players can get it done faster regardless. Moreover this makes it easier for less skilled players to progress if they can't reliably hit the requirement threshold. Performing better is an individual skill that is agnostic to what other players do. If you want to get better at farming damage or kills or wins, you can't really rely on others giving you the breathing space to do so at your leisure or carrrying you. Winning because you got carried doesn't mean you played well, it just means you got carried and your contribution didn't really matter. I pity players still working to grind out their vehicles, the grind is long and tedious and simply not fun. I've been there, we have all been there. On the other side of the coin, if I were to stay in their match I will very likely outperform them by considerable margins, to the point where they have to do another "one last match" because they can't get enough XP due to me completing objectives and killing bots too fast. I'll use the York as an extreme example, they can't really compete with my damage output and mechanical knowledge. Is it better to win by being carried and not able to contribute much, or failing even after giving maximum effort? Don't ignore the cries of "my daily win bonus got ruined because skilled players won't let me do anything", the concept of griefing others by playing too well has considerable merits. Short of objectives that demand pubbie participation such as assist damage, most of the tasks are easily soloable and don't require specific match outcomes. On the other hand, there are plenty of tasks that can be made far easier if pubbies do nothing. 30 kill/assists or all shots dealing damage comes to mind, even Blue Stars (top XP) can only be obtained if nobody else perform better than you do. As a compromise, I do ask if people mind me playing with minimal effort, and almost always agree to assist if others ask for help on anything that require my presence.

The problem with platoons is that not everybody have a big enough network to find people available and willing to help out, even more so now when people are burning out from the game and actually try to avoid playing if they don't have to. I for one am seriously burnt out, I wouldn't want to spend any more time in the game than the minimum necessary to complete my tasks, and I certainly don't have the heart to ask others to waste their time with me.

Would it make any difference if I'm inherently a poor player? Are there quantifiable differences between intentionally and unintentionally playing poorly? Playing poorly isn't necessarily griefing, nor is it against the rules. Like I said, if playing poorly is punishable then over 90% of the playerbase would have to be punished. I can equally say by having poor players on my teams, they are hurting me since I have to compensate for their shortcomings. Or perhaps by ignoring secondary objectives they are also griefing everyone by denying them the bonus credits (which I don't need). It's a slippery slope to claim that it is against the rules for good players to play poorly, but not if poor players are playing poorly. Yes, it's probably scummy that I'm playing way below my expected skill level. But again playing poorly isn't griefing since I'm not aiming to grief, I'm simply playing under different expectations than others. The biggest thing is that the outcome of the battles literally do not matter as long as the task requirements don't require me to win.

It's against the rules to grief, yes. It's NOT against the rules to play poorly, big difference.

This won't be so much a as guide on specific cheesing strategies for contract missions and such, but rather a discussion on the philosophy of expending bare minimum effort and time to satisfy whatever requirements or goals you may have. Contract missions and BP stuff will be used for examples because of their high applicability, but they are by no means the only candidates for minimal effort gameplay. I shall define minimal effort gameplay as a playstyle, in which the goal of playing is to satisfy specific requirements that do not demand continuous effort or contribution throughout the full length of games. This usually goes against the common philosophies of playing to win or playing as best as you can, assuming winning or high performance gameplay are not your goals. It will take far too many words to explain this in detail, so I'll start by using an example from the previous BP: Here, my goal is to achieve 6000 assist damage in 10 battles. There are no other requirements, nor are there any bonuses for achieving beyond the goal of 6000 assist damage. I do not earn extra progress towards the mission for farming more than 6000 assist damage per battle, and I have to do this 10 times. Why then, should I bother to stay any longer in that particular battle after I am certain that I have hit the required 6000 assist damage? It is not time efficient for me to waste time to continue the battle, I could have simply died and went into another battle to progress through the 10 battles faster. For tasks of which I am limited by time (either through mechanics or real life), time itself becomes a limited resource and a metric for efficiency. My goal becomes not only to satisfy whatever requirements I may have, but also to spend as little time as possible to complete the tasks. For example, in order to farm 2000 infantry damage for 10 batles as fast as possible, I can use the method of not staying in my battles any longer than it takes for my infantry to rack up 2000 damage. I can pile in 10 battles and complete the mission within an hour this way. Average active playtime in each battle: less than 3 minutes. The most common rebuttal to my minimal effort gameplay tends to be that you are not being a team player, or that you don't support other players in your battles. While that may be true, the mission requirements of which I'm exerting minimum effort to satisfy do not require any sort of teamplay. As I said above, the goal is time efficiency and not actual gameplay performance, there are no incentives or duty to carry others if it means allocating more time in each battle, time that could be spent finishing missions faster. Another argument is that minimal effort gameplay is against the rules... somehow. This one is easy to refute: there is no rule mandating anyone to play at any competency level. If playing poorly is against the rules somehow then over 90% of the playerbase would be liable to punishment. The goal and execution of minimal effort gameplay also isn't intended to grief other players, so anti-griefing rules also don't apply. In a nutshell, there are no rules against playing poorly intentionally or otherwise. The biggest challenge to minimal effort gameplay is that you are not playing as well as you can, and that your stats will suffer as a result. This argument is easy to address as long as you don't fall into the trap of assuming stats reflect personal performance. Stats don't matter, there is no competition in the game and the stats can easily be rigged, all that matters is how well you can perform when you are required to perform at high skill levels. As long as you can play well when you are needed, who cares if you play like crap when you don't have to play well? You may feel bad for not playing as well as you could, but remember the goal here is about time efficiency not gameplay performance. Playing well doesn't mean squat if you have to spend more time than it is necessary to complete your missions. There is one subjective factor in minimal effort gameplay, that is how much fun you get out of it. Minimal effort gameplay is grindy and not really fun, but neither is having to spend a lot of time to complete grindy missions like doing repetitive tasks for 10 battles. Sometimes the game feels like a chore and hardly fun at all in any way, you may want to complete your tasks as fast as possible so you can spend extra time doing other things you truly enjoy. The fun factor is something players have to address by themselves: how much fun or suffering do you want while grinding through tasks that are hardly fun? How much time are you willing to invest into the game as opposed to doing something else, potentially more fun than the game? I for one, prefer to exert the bare minimum effort required to complete my tasks as fast as possible, so I can get on with doing other things that I actually enjoy. If I have to grind out 10 games of 10000 damage each, then I will do exactly that and no more. This apply to contract missions, BP missions, anything that require repetitive grinding where I don't progress faster by playing better. TL;DR: play smarter, not harder.

But this is nice! The game is less dull when you can connect with your favorite anime characters in the game!

Best part of the game for me is NOT playing the game. Bantering with people and playing other stuff (L4D, Among Us, SC2) is ironically more fun than playing the same dull content over and over again. But if I have to limit myself to what is fun in AW, it's almost exclusively heroics and meme runs. Anything that will challenge my skills with real possibilities of failing due to lack of skill or experience. Spec Ops excluded, because the special mechanics are more annoying than being tests of skill.

Interesting, this could be fun and balanced assuming it runs on a magazine system like the AMX-30 and AMX-40. As long as it's not simply a full T-15 belt it should be fine. Then again, would anybody be surprised if this end up being T-15 2.0, but with a big gun instead of missiles?