Haswell

Got a reply, was nice. The ACM basically said misleading advertising is outside their scope, and advised me to contact the Advertising Code Foundation (SRC) instead. Link to SRC complaint form: https://www.reclamecode.nl/klacht-indienen/ With the magic of Google Translate, I submitted my report again. With any luck, something will happen.

This topic concerns the Thunderbird Bundles being sold on Black Friday. Specifically the three of them on the web shop marked with limited stock. https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/offer-black-friday-0 If the stock counter looks phony to you, you're right. Examining the statements of limited stock reveals that they are literally just static text without any update functions. I'm not well versed in the laws of Netherlands, but conventional wisdom suggests this is probably skirting a bit too far with the law. I submitted a report to the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) anyways, this wouldn't hurt them if My.com is doing nothing wrong, but in case they are doing something wrong this can be considered a slap on the wrist. In case other people want to follow suit and also submit reports, here's my message for reference: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Kasuobes/6a6331be9b2ad25e2c8d8fade8779437/raw/eb1aaef17ac8cbdb6d11b1021a5746ded0a1ef00/gistfile1.txt The Dutch Advertising Code can be found here: https://business.gov.nl/regulation/advertising/ BIG EDIT: ACM replied to me that misleading advertising is outside their scope and advised me to contact the Advertising Code Foundation (SRC) instead. Link to their online complaint form: https://www.reclamecode.nl/klacht-indienen/ Yes, it's also in Dutch. Not a big deal, Google Translate works.

So... the complete list of rewards by days completed in case people don't want to check in-game (like me!). Highlights on things that are potentially worth something: 3 days premium time 5x gold boxes decal: snow owl 1x plat box 1x BC booster decal: snow tiger 3 days premium time 1x plat box 1x BC booster decal: snow wolf Skin: M60A3 ICE 1x plat box 5x gold boxes decal: snow wiesel Japanese Winter Camo 1x plat box 3 days premium time decal: snow bear 1x plat box player avatar 1x plat box decal: snow fox Skin: Leopard 2AV ICE 7 days premium time Skin: Type 90 Winter Warrior Overall meh, really not a big deal if you skip the event altogether.

SS mentioned in one of the Q&As that module-based progression wasn't popular, but even so a system like this would smooth out the power differences between tiers. If nothing else, the game would have more variety in vehicles without actually needing to add new vehicles. Instead of changing the tiers of the vehicles it may be sufficient to merely increase their power level, so that they can adequately compete against higher tiers. To expand on your Leopard 1 example: Base Leopard 1, relatively high DPM but gets outclassed by tier 4s Leopard 1 w/ turret armor upgrade and FCS for better gun handling (effectively 1A4 standard), still tier 3 but with a power level of unupgraded tier 4. Change the name to Leopard 1A4 because it's encouraging to have a sense of progression. Base Leopard 1A5, the runt of tier 5 before upgrades. Leopard 1A5 with MEXAS and more FCS upgrades, power level of unupgraded tier 6. Change name to Leopard C2 MEXAS. Same concept can be applied to the numerous vehicle series in the game right now. Instead of splitting the T-72/T-80/T-90 series across three different tiers each, they can be consolidated their respective base vehicles with upgrades that raise their power level to the expected tier ranges. T-72 can upgrade itself to 72A/72B/72B3 standard for instance, to cover 4 different power levels. The downside is that this will reduce the overall number of distinct vehicles in the game, and players might get bored being stuck with the same vehicle for a long time. An expansion system at low tiers would be more ideal to begin with, as you said.

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.