Nekrosmas

I've encountered another instance of this happening. My observation is that this only triggers when someone dies and respawn, for whatever reason there is. I've seperate the clip into 2 to give better context to what is happening: Clip 1 As you can see in Clip 1, this Russian player I am following is playing perfectly normally - until he died in the town. Then he respawns, and immediately 2 "clones" of himself is spawned, with him now actually in control of an un-named tank, while the one with his name on it and an extra one idle and doing nothing. Later in the clip, you can see he is actually treated normally in game, and even capped a point. I suspect on his screen, he is seeing what Azdule reported above - as in, with no UI element and on other's perspective, with no name on top of you. Clip 2 Continuing to Clip 2, you can see him continuing to the objective, but then after I switched the view back to myself, you can see on my end, I am seeing the bugged player as if he's a bot (With no name on top of his tank). Peculiarly, upon trying to switch back to the bugged player perspective, I can no longer see the perspective of the actual player, but instead the idle tank which apparently is treated by the game as "him" (When he's controlling the other tank as seen in Clip 1). This has been a recurring bug for some time now, although no frequent is quite a game-breaking one and has some pattern to it (Only happens when respawning - however no one have figured how does it actually triggers it yet).

We are running heroics chapter 3 normally, but then this happened. One of our guys Azdule died, and randomly on our end a random duplicate of him (Which is treated by the game as a bot) spawned, while Azdule himself was unable to talk, unable to respawn. Initially we thought he went AFK because apparently his tank is still there on our end, but that was apparently NOT the case. Clip: I apologize for the WT soundtrack, I was using Shadowplay and I completely forgot about it recording background sound (lol)

I'm nominating myself for the memes because god knows how many people I pissed off But yes, I genuinely have loads of experience managing large discord servers (1 with 45K members, 1 with 2.5k members and another one with 9.5k members). I can show proof to Haswell/officers if they want to see it.

I wonder if this has anything to do with "rebalancing" arty....

Here we go again... General Feedback The Rock VS Everthing In general, I believe this update messed up more the general Rock Paper Scissors meta despite the intention to restore it. MBTs = the Jack of All Trades, Master of Everything: Firepower: Have the best gun of their tier, with High Penetration, High Alpha and increased DPM (regardless of the nerf from PTS 1 - they are still increased compared to live server) Armor: Changes to Armor means their weakspot became much easier to hide - Most MBT’s weakness is usually their LFP, many more funky weakspot like turret rings are not longer penetrable even with the best APFSDS. Mobility: They don’t feel slow at all - in fact tanks like the ATDU of all things have top-notch 0-Max speed time at ~20 odd seconds which is absurd. View Range is right about the only weakness of this class yet they always fight in close range anyway in the first place, mitigating this weakness for the most part LTs / Wheeled vehicles = The “worse” MBT Firepower: They lost ~5% DPM for basically no compensation. Why? They guns are usually worse than that of the MBTs of the same tier, and their main selling point *is* that DPM. With the increase of MBT DPM, its compounding on the shrinking gap between MBT and LT DPM. Considering the lack of armor of these tanks, I don’t see the rationale behind this change, on top of the mobility nerf it received. Armor: They never had any armor to speak of for the most part. PL-01 also is much less resistant to HEAT now, for some peculiar reason. Mobility: This is the big one. In general, most wheeled TDs and LTs feel much slower than they are compared to live server. LTs seem to handle just as sluggish as the MBTs, while acceleration to max-speed felt inadequate considering how fast some of the MBTs can be now (looking at you, T-14). Turning radius also is not where I would expect agile wheeled vehicles or LTs to be. Wheeled vehicles have horrible acceleration to their max speed despite their theoretical top speed; They never even get close to that even on hard terrain. This isn’t a realistic game and I thought the nerf to their mobility (Vehicles like the SPHINX and the Korent-EM) feels superficial and unnecessary. They just feel extremely unnatural to control compared to live because it feels so much slower and clunky. Having (finally) the disparity in view range is very nice, but I don’t think its enough to justify playing this class over other tanks (especially MBTs). ATGM chip damage I am sure this has been stated many many times, but I genuinely think this is a toxic mechanic for PvE. T-15 and Bradleys dish out so many missiles in short succession that chipping damage alone can deal a lot of damage to you. despite using your armor correctly. Yes - I know that in PTS stage 2, ATGM are not supposed to do much chipping damage to heavily armored parts anymore, but this feels extremely inconsistent. I regularly still take 200-400 damage when T-15s/Bradleys shoot at my thickest frontal armor. You take cumulatively so much more unnecessary damage that you have to rebuild kit much more frequently in many games. ATGMs already have a global increase to their penetration for the most part. I don’t see why there is a need to give them even more power. It's not a fun mechanic and I strongly urge it to be scrapped. Removal of HEAT / ATGM’s Damage bonus I understand the intention here is to lessen the RNG of HEAT (and ATGMs) in general, but the consequence of that is the loss of that High-risk, High reward mechanic, and the differentiation of a good player firing at weakspot vs a less-skilled player auto-aiming their missiles. Now, firing at weak engine decks, or parts without ERA protections are meaningless as they won’t award you extra damage for the extra effort you put in to aim those missiles. Reworked Armor felt bland MBT’s armor in general now feels extremely bland and uninteresting. For the most part, just shoot APFSDS at the lower plate of any MBT and you’ll penetrate it. Previously, there are some fun little quirks to many tanks’ armor that you can fire a variety of rounds to your own risk. There are tiny weakspots on tanks that HEAT can penetrate and subsequently do more damage than APFSDS (e.g. Turing ring of XM1A3, Driver’s hatch on the T-14) - but the tradeoff is that you do no damage at all. That is now completely gone. It discourages ammo diversity and in general makes each engagement uninspiring, as the best tactic for the most part now is to face hug each other so that the enemy cannot shoot at your lower plate. It makes tanks like the XM1A3 incredibly strong because of the removal of most of its weakspot. Tank-Specific Feedback SPHINX Its missile is way too weak compare to the CRAB (which is a Tier 9), which now has better per-missile reload AND 2 more missile to play with 14 second Missile reload and increased intra-missile reload, and very low Alpha damage for ATGM at 750 makes is way too weak for Tier 10 standards Camo-rating falls to near-Zero when firing a missile, pushing it towards a pure scout. Autocannon upgrade is inadequate to make up the difference between the missiles It feels like a downgrade compare to the CRAB Suggestion: Swap its positioning with the Shadow, which makes more sense to be positioned as a pure scout, and instead make the SPHINX the AFV/TD hybrid (according to the graph in the portal article) Give (partially) some of its ATGM power back by either decreasing the reload time on the missiles or increasing the damage of the missiles. Challenger 2 ATDU As of right now, it is a kind of MBT Wilk kind of PISH spamming TD rather than the heavily armored MBT that they should be as outlined. The frontal LFP weakspot remain enlarged compare to live for no apparent reason - It was always supposed to be hard to deal with at the front - its now much less consistent in doing the tanking (and possibly affecting how it reacts to ATGM chipping damage too). Its side Dorchester blocks are completely destroyed, becoming basic spaced armor. I cannot agree with this change on top of the LFP nerf. Its effectiveness against HEAT are a little bit worse than it is on live (~1000mm effective - a lot of Tier 10 ATG can, and will chew through that), while completely useless against any kind of kinetic rounds (~350mm effective when you don't angle it, and ~600mm with a heavy angle, WTF is this "Dorchester block"?). Don’t understand why the insistence of making the ATDU less armored considering it is contradictory to what its positioning in the rebalance. I strongly urge the developers to either give it back the composite armor blocks, or at the very least make it some kind of NERA blocks. It’s absurdly fast and agile for a supposedly heavily armored tank. Suggestion: Option 1 - The Solo Warrior: Retain the current frontal armor profile, but give it back the Dorchester armor blocks on the side. This would make over-angling the tank possible again to compensate for the LFP nerf. Keep the mobility as is in order to allow it to adjust its angling quickly in accordance to the engagement, making it a very tough lone warrior that can hold the line for extended periods of time while being not completely unkillable from the front. Option 2 - The Doom Turtle: Give its Live server frontal armor profile back, but keep the side armor as of PTS Stage 2 to allow for easy flanking. Adjust its mobility downwards in order to make this a frontline doom turtle that would tank extremely well, but prone to flanking and thus require ally support. Abrams Family Contrary to the complete disaster that it is in PTS stage 1, in PTS stage 2 the entire Abrams family has now become the “new” doom turtle with only a small weakspot while the entire front is basically impenetrable. Take the XM1A3 as an example: As of PTS stage 2, there is only a tiny strip of “Lower” LFP that is penetrable by even the DM23 (900mm APFSDS penetration). This is way too overboard now even compared to even the Obj 490 and ATDU. Considering its extremely powerful ERA on the sides that protect against both APFSDS and HEAT ammo, on top of the removal of turret ring weakspot, it is extremely tough to kill one in any angle bar its back. Suggestion: Give the Abrams its turret ring weakness back in a similar fashion to the Lepoard 2AX - instead of the entire turret ring, the section under the cannon would become the weakspot. This makes sure that it is not completely invulnerable when face-hugging, while not being as obnoxious to hide (point your cannon downwards to cover it up) as it is on live server. T-72. T-80, T-90, Object 640 and other T-series derivatives (Excluding T-14 family) As of right now, many T-series tank already have a relatively small LFP portion compared to Western tanks (like the Abrams or the Lelclerc); With the new changes It has the Abrams armor problem but even more pronounced across the whole line. Right now on PTS, that tiny strip of LFP is further divided into a upper portion that is almost as strong as the UFP and a very very tiny strip that serves as a weakspot in the “lower” LFP. This makes them extremely powerful against even higher tier vehicles because its very difficult to hit it even at sub-100m range. Those “Lower” LFP weakspot are still extremely strong, and especially to HEAT rounds. The T90MS as of right now is resistant up to ~1200mm penetration ATGMs, which is absolutely ridiculous and is superior to the T-14 in terms of armor, which is absurd. Suggestion: Weaken the LFP to make it at least penetrable to top ATGMs of its tier, and APFSDS should have no issues going through it. T-series LFP (except the T-14 family) are already very small to begin with. K2 and Type 10 K2 Is effectively the new Type 10 Insane burst damage (2K-3K damage within 4 seconds) potential while retaining above average DPM Resistant to APFSDS from the front (abeit not as good against HEAT) Type 10 Seems a little over-nerfed with both DPM and DPS nerf Its armor was never that great to begin with, and it was the gun and the mobility that kept it afloat. Suggestion: K2: Keep its burst potential as is, but nerf its overall DPM to differentiate it from the Type 10. Adjust its armor profile to make it less resistant to kinetic rounds. Type 10: Increase its DPM by a bit (not to Live server level but partially), but keep the DPS value as is (as in, keep the intra-shot reload nerf as of PTS stage 2) to differentiate it from the K2. As a result, while the Type 10 does not have the DPS potential like it is right now in Live server, it retains its excellent DPM and will be great for extended engagements (and in PvE); K2 will now do more burst damage than the Type 10, but does not compete with it in consistent damage, resembling a hit-and-run play style that suits more to PvP but still viable in PvE.

From what I can tell, a majority (Im talking about >60% if not more) of the playerbase are PvE players. Lets face it: AW's gameplay is not fundamentally different to WoT (WT is its own thing), and most people played AW rather than WoT because they are: A. Sick and tired of the BS in WoT and WT (Looking at you, WG and Gaijn) B. Doesn't like the PvP-centric gameplay of WoT (or indeed other WG projects) /WT, and want something modern + PvE Allow me to be blunt: AW's chances of beating WG at their own game is very slim. Yes, PvP in this game has its own unique twist, but fundamentally it plays just about the same as WoT, just with modern tanks - why wouldn't I just go play WoT instead if I really want to play PvP? WoT unquestionably is much more polished, has a larger playerbase, and in general they are just the established game in the genre, and it would be very difficult to compete with them without significant resources being put into it (and not guaranteed to succeed). However, in my humble opinion anyway, AW survived this long because it always has one thing WoT, and indeed WT doesn't have - a PvE side of the game that is not only viable, but actually pretty damn good for what it is. Operations, Spec Ops, Glops (personally not a fan but there sure is a playerbase around that), Heroics - lots of variety and perfectly viable for grinding. Yeah sure its definitely not perfect and sometimes cheesy, but then you look at the disaster that is WG's attempt at PvE mode (e.g. Road to Berlin is nothing but a cash-grab grinding mode that is repetitive and obnoxious), or WT's borderline "PvE" mode in Air/Ground Assault, which is basically just a tower defense mode with a fancy name - AW is so much better in this regard. Do I think the developers should kill off PvP? Probably not, because there is also some attraction there, and I would be perfectly happy to see occasional love to the mode (new maps, balance changes). But I am telling you - PvE is this game's niche. Its what makes this game attractive to people looking for an alternative to the PvP centric military/tank MMO out there. Rather than trying to imitate what somebody else does, why not do what you do best and make the most of it?

So, I compiled all available MBTs as of Test Iteration 1 and how their Armor is changed compare to 0.32 + some feedback. All tanks are shot at by T-14 Armata's upgraded APFSDS, which has 850mm of penetration. For all 0.33 screenshots, the first screenshot will be at 100m, and the second at 320m (which is basically as far as you will engage in PvE for 90% of the time). It should have roughly 750mm of penetration at 320m. Challenger 2 ATDU 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: The ATDU is the biggest loser of 0.33 no question. Even at 320m, the weakspot is at least 2-3x larger than live server (keep in mind, at that range your round has only 750mm of pen which is basically Tier 9 Penetration). At 100m, the armor is nothing but a joke. T-14 Armata 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: Contrary to the ATDU, the T-14 is the biggest winner of 0.33. Its turret ring is no longer a weakspot, while its lower front plate did not receive any change - if not become stronger thanks to APFSDS increased penetration drop off. XM1A3 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: You would think removing the turret ring weakspot is good for the XM1A3 - well, you are wrong. Reason being now, your ENTIRE LFP is a weakspot to basically all Tier 9 and Tier 10 APFSDS, at only ~720mm RHA against Kinetic rounds. Good luck fighting other MBTs which will lol-pen your unhidable LFP. Merkava 4M 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: Another big winner in 0.33 - the Merkava 4M. Its armor is mostly untouched bar the removal of the tiny weakspot under the gun. With the new penetration drop off plus now its best-in-class DPS and DPM, good luck fighting it. Leopard 2AX 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: This is one of the tanks where a good job had been done. Upper plate is now properly protected, but the LFP remain completely vulnerable - which is to be expected from the Leopard line. I would call this balanced - Well done (for once). Type 99A2 0.32 0.33 Thoughts: Armor is unchanged for the most part. BUT there is a caveat - there is now multiple roof weakspot that isn't hard to shoot at as long as you are taller than the Type 99A2. I am not quite sure this is intended or not, and you WILL get penned there by those new 1000mm pen HEAT rounds. Watch out.

Edit: Updated post with some new points. Keep in mind, this is mostly from a PvE perspective, but this game is 70% PvE players so I think it is perfectly relevant. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (so far): Good: - Mobility rework – Credits where credits due, tanks no longer feel like toys on a road, but rather something have weight to it. I especially love how tanks slides around when you turn while going to too fast. Overall movement also become better – you no longer get stuck in the smallest of rocks but rather go over them. The physics now I think feels good - by no means perfect but a big step forward nonetheless. Well done. - Ammo selection - Although not perfect, basically giving every tank the ability to do instant ammo switch is a great change and encourage the use of different ammo. In some situations, high tier HE (Am mostly talking about the T14/152’s HE but it also applies to others to a less degree) actually have some use now because they actually do decent damage as long as you aim them properly. Encouraging more use of different ammo in different situation is something I can get behind on. The (Really) Bad: Balance problems This deserves its own section because right now there are couple of tanks that stands out to me being way to strong and way to powerful, and there are also some changes that I don’t understand. The Armor Redesign and "Weakspots" problem One of the main features of this update is the redesign of many tank's armor. While I get what the developers are going for, I cannot fanthom why it is done in such a simiplified way. In essence, whenever you see any tank with some kind of armor, shooting its LFP = probably a good idea. More funky weakpoints - like the notorious XM1A3 turret ring, or the T-15 Armata's turret ring under its autocannon (which you can also ammorack if with HEAT/HESH/PISH). Those are all gone. Now its basically shooting the LFP and thats about it. Maybe thats what some of the playerbase want, but as far as I can tell, nobody I know liked this change at all. There has always been a little meta game going on when you shoot at a tank. Some people prefer to fire APFSDS as their main ammunition because they provide the highest chance of doing consistent damage. Thats perfectly fine. But more experienced players will learn about the weakspots of different tanks - and firing appropriate ammo at it will help them maximize their damage output in different situations. Firing HEAT at the front of a T-15 is risky, but if you can hit that little turret ring under its autocannon, you are rewarded with higher damage + potential module damage; at the same time, you also run the risk of not doing any damage because it is not a big target to hit. Yes - the LFP is easier to pen with APFSDS, but if you fire HEAT/HESH/PISH at the weakspot, you'll do more damage BUT at the risk of not penning at all. Thats something I really enjoy - Now that the devlopers has effectively given every tank instant switching of ammunition type, this changes seems 1 step forward, and 10 step backwards. Its really ashame to see the removal of these funky weakspot and going the easy route of nerfing MBTs' LFP. Please, reconsider such changes. T-14 (and the 152) They are unquestionably the best overall MBT in the game now. They are not slow – armor contrary to others did not get changed much so the playstyle is similar; The relatively small LFP weak spot is easy to hide, while the unmanned turret is a big plus as always. However, they now have >1000mm pen ATGMs that function like HEAT-MP + has 1000mm Pen HEAT-FS that does >1000 alpha again, and perfectly good APFSDS that has good pen. Its DPM is also now among best in class (second only to the Merkava 4M) on top of its huge alpha potential; I can get up to 11000 DPM with HEAT-FS with retrofits and Douglas. That is NUTS. Their mobility feels decent – while not the fastest its certainly faster than the slower MBTs (like the Merkava and the ATDU). Also comes with very fast turret traverse to boot. T-14 152: Similar problem to the T-14, only it has now 1050 alpha with standard APFSDS. The T-14 Armata family is no doubt the winner of this rebalance. They are *the jack of all trades*, master of everything tank. I am not quite sure this is intended. Challenger 2 ATDU Look how they massacred my boy. The ATDU is supposed to be the ultimate doom turtle that is accessible through the tech tree. Now it has huge LFP weakspot…for what? On top of that, the side armor is completely destroyed. One of the ways you tank with the ATDU is you over-angle with it and you can hide your LFP weakspot while eating up shots with your sides – that is now no longer possible thanks to the enlarged LFP weakspot and the massacred side armor. In comparison – this is the T14’s new armor. I am shooting T-14’s own APFSDS at both tank to demonstrate how ridiculous of a change this is. This has to be a cruel little joke from the developers…. Basically, T-14 has a smaller LFP weakspot, MUCH faster, has amazing HEAT-FS and ATGM, Unmanned turret, >3 seconds faster reload; ATDU has....? It’s not just better in PvE, its better in PvP as well. This change destroyed ATDU's “thing” and compensating elsewhere is missing the point. Its armor was fine as is – its easily flanked, and it doesn’t really shoot itself out of trouble very well either. We tolerated its poor mobility and gun because it is the doom turtle. Bonus: ATDU's PISH Previously (or as working in 0.32 right now) – PISH is not that strong but it is a very fun, and rewarding round to use if you take the time to aim for ammoracks and modules. Now, not only it does pitiful damage, its module damage is so low that sometimes you need 2 shots to kill any modules – effectively completely destroying PISH. Why is this change needed? It wasn’t brokenly OP in PvP or PvE – it was a fun round for sure but by no means its OP due to its low penetration and require a degree of finesse to use. 10mm of penetration “buff” is completely meaningless and frankly it is unwarranted to nerf it so hard. Overall, I think the ATDU needs a look at by the developers seriously. It was never the strongest tank to begin with. It’s quite slow, turns slowly, has the worst DPM among Tier 10 MBTs, and the penetration is among the worst (counting APFSDS). Leopard 2 family I think this belongs more to the Ugly part, because this is much less of a problem than the other 2, but regardless it deserves a look at. Leopard 2’s armor is basically paper thin now – right up from the Leo 2 AV to the Leopard 2A6. Its only when you get to the Leopard 2 AX that your UFP actually does mean something. While I understand this is an intended balance feature of the Leopard 2s, I am very not sure about changing them to (Literally) no armor is the way to go. Leopard 2AV - I nearly thought its a Leopard 1. Leopard 2A5 (A6 is in a similar boat) The Leopard 2AX is slightly better because its UFP is actually acceptable, but I have a big problem with its side armor. Look – I don’t think it should have 0.32 Challenger 2 ATDU tier side armor, but I think this is way overdone because high tier auto cannons can effectively lol-pen your sides easily from decent ranges. I do not feel like giving it just over 200mm of armor is justified considering the whole of the side of it is covered with Appliqué armor. Considering you have to angle your front already to bounce any kind of shots, giving it a little more side armor would help it a long way to at least not be completely paper thin when it comes to armor. Their mobility also does not feel that good compare to what was said. I would classify it as mediocre at best – considering their complete lack of armor, I am not sure that is enough to compensate. I would suggest a look into that. Their gun is good – and thank god for the HEAT-T round which is great in PvE. The Ugly: The LT/TD Mobility/Firepower problem Unfortunately, although the mobility changes are good, I really do not understand the reasoning behind LT nerf over their mobility and firepower. For many LTs, their acceleration is completely destroyed to a point where MBTs aren’t that much or not even slower than them at all. I don’t think that is the way to go considering how much LT gave up on their armor department to trade for mobility and firepower. On the topic of firepower – why is the nerf to the module bonus needed? Considering the gigantic DPM buff all MBT received, their gun no longer feels as special as some MBTs also have crazy ROF and much higher alpha damage. If this is to be carried over to live server, there would no longer be much reason to play an LT because what they are special at (Mobility, and high DPM) are no longer special. As a sidenote, this change also applies to some TDs – The Wilk XC8 for example now has nearly a 5 second 0-32 speed – that’s horrific for a wheeled vehicle; The Kornet-EM – a tank with no armor whatsoever and also lost view range – was also hurted badly from this mobility change. Considering the tradeoff they made in armor, I really don’t see why it is needed to nerf many LT/TD’s mobility. I really don’t fancy these changes I hope it will be reverted. The ATGM chipping damage issue Considering the amount of ATGM spam is in PvE, this is an absolutely disaster of a change. I know that there will be more tanks added to the tank pool, but considering most high tier AFV/TD has some form of missile – I am seriously concerned about this change. I really don’t see what is the point of this change outside giving more power to ATGM – the damage and penetration buff they received in this patch is already enough to compensate towards the ERA changes, is there really need to change it further to improve its power? That is all for now. Will do some more testing during weekends.