Haswell 294 Posted August 7, 2020 https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/development-quality-life-improvements Quote Update 0.33 won’t only contain big changes that will change the feel of the entire game, such as the previously announced Tier 7-10 rebalance. There will also be smaller (but equally important) quality of life features, some of which we want to tell you about today. Battle-Hardened improvements – As you know, the Battle-Hardened status is a semi-premium state where, in exchange for Gold, your fully unlocked progression vehicle starts earning more Credits and XP. In Update 0.33, we’ll be giving it one more interesting function to increase its value. Battle-hardened vehicles will have preferential Matchmaking – that is, they will not encounter vehicles two Tiers higher in any of their battles. This will allow for more comfortable gameplay with this feature unlocked. Camo and Skin Appearance – There is significant group of players, who prefer their vehicles “as they are” and do not feel the need to purchase camouflages or skins, but have purchased it anyway for the camouflage bonus. In Update 0.33, such players will have the option to disable their own camouflage for their client in the game’s Settings tab. To you, your tank will appear without a skin or camouflage. To the other players, it will appear as if it has a skin or camouflage unlocked. Please note, however, that old vehicles with fixed camouflage (commonly referred to as “reskins”) will not be affected by this setting. Avatar and Title Improvements – Player avatars and titles will become more prominent, appearing for example in your Friend list or, more importantly, on loading screens. This will become noticeable especially in PvE where you’ll be able to show your vintage event avatar to everyone who’s getting in battle with you. No more Fuel Fires – This is a minor mechanics change but still a useful one. In Update 0.33, vehicles will not suffer from fires caused by their fuel tanks. All fuel tank modules will effectively become indestructible. It will still be possible to set the engines on fire, but the fuel will be protected. We’re also preparing some armor and ammunition tooltip improvements and other smaller changes which we hope you’ll enjoy, but that’s a story for another time. Right now, it’s back to the big stuff in our next Developer Diary article. So, until then: 1 Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
joebob73 4 Posted August 7, 2020 (edited) My thoughts on this announcement in a nutshell Spoiler Who asked for ANY of this? More changes that nobody either wanted or needed. Sure, the camo/skin change is nice, but the rest? Terrible idea. Edited August 7, 2020 by joebob73 (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soren 15 Posted August 7, 2020 the idea of "better MM if you pay" is funny, only in PVP tho, but still, even if this coming with the rebalance it just feel extremely dumb. We don't need that, the MM already do that for EVERYBODY. It just feel like they aren't sure of what the hell they are doing, so just it case it turn out to be an extremely painful balance, no problem, you pay so you don't have to suffer through +2 PVP battle! and that Fuel tank change is why. at this point if people complain too much about modules, just delete them completely, problem solved, no more Fire, no more tracking, no more ammo rack explosion. Perfect for the player that don't want to learn even the simpliest stuff or deal with thing that are totally part of the game the avater and camo change are ok-ish, this won't change shit The armor and ammo tooltip improvement otherwise are nice, feel a bit rip they haven't done this before after the introduction of the Telephone pole launcher 3 minutes ago, joebob73 said: Who asked for ANY of this? More changes that nobody either wanted or needed. RU side, apparently Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TeyKey1 119 Posted August 7, 2020 I really don't like this. Quote Battle-hardened vehicles will have preferential Matchmaking – that is, they will not encounter vehicles two Tiers higher in any of their battles. This will allow for more comfortable gameplay with this feature unlocked. According to SS all prems do have the preferential MM already. I was not aware of this. Honestly, it has a very bad taste of P2W for me anyways. That preferential MM stuff should not be a thing in such a game as it gives you an unfair advantage over other players. In my opinion this stuff should be removed alltogether from the game. Give all players equal MM. Additionally I fear that the already long MM queues (at least for the PVP modes) will even suffer more. I rarely see +-2 Tier games anyways so why is there even a need to have this ugly "preferential MM" thingy? Quote In Update 0.33, such players will have the option to disable their own camouflage for their client in the game’s Settings tab. To you, your tank will appear without a skin or camouflage. To the other players, it will appear as if it has a skin or camouflage unlocked. Please note, however, that old vehicles with fixed camouflage (commonly referred to as “reskins”) will not be affected by this setting. Either I'm too dumb to understand this correctly, the explanation is bad or this really is a feature that a tiny fraction of the players will ever use and never really was asked for. Basically with this announced feature you can disable the visual appearance of your camos globally for all vehicles you own. So there's no way of adjusting this separate on every vehicle in the garage (at least that's how I read it). If this is correct it's really one of the most useless functionalities of AW. Why not simply implement a transparent camo which you can buy to get the 5% camo bonus. You could adjust this on every vehicle even based on the environment. You could use various base-colors to your liking without the need of adding a camo on top of it. This is what most of the players I know have been asking for. Honestly, I'm struggling to see the benefit of the announced system. Quote No more Fuel Fires – This is a minor mechanics change but still a useful one. In Update 0.33, vehicles will not suffer from fires caused by their fuel tanks. All fuel tank modules will effectively become indestructible. It will still be possible to set the engines on fire, but the fuel will be protected. Why do the devs try to make the game easier than it already is? It's not the first time and I don't like it at all. Make the game idiot-proof: Mission accomplished If there really is a problem with certain vehicles having the fueal tank in the front then simply increase the hitpoints of the module. Already looking forward to the next simplification Before they apply this ton of changes I'd humbly suggest to first fix the ton of Lags that are currently in the game. At this point it's ridiculous and very embarassing for this company. It slowly creates an impression of devs having no clue what the problem is / how to fix it. 51 minutes ago, Soren said: RU side, apparently Really wonder what their reasoning for this BS was Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Krieger22 3 Posted August 7, 2020 And how exactly does Battle Hardened status become worth more if T7 premiums still get stuck fighting T-15s in PvE? Honestly, I'd take the current crop of premium skins giving you BH status over this and the transparent camos. Fuel tank changes: How often does one get set on fire through gas tank hits instead of engine or ammo rack fires anyway? How often is this happening to RU players? How noticeable is the damaged/destroyed gas tank debuff compared to engine damage currently? Avatar and title implementation on load screens: I really wonder how on earth this is going to fit on screen in a 24 player match of any sort. And barely any acknowledgement that they removed the skin name changes for vehicles in matches alongside the in-match name display changes for no apparent reason. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soren 15 Posted August 7, 2020 (edited) 14 minutes ago, TeyKey1 said: Really wonder what their reasoning for this BS was Shaddy and dark logic? idk Maybe, MAYBE, it will turn out nice and super cool for everybody, but it just feel so wrong to do those change especially for the fuel that is just stupid 7 minutes ago, Krieger22 said: And how exactly does Battle Hardened status become worth more if T7 premiums still get stuck fighting T-15s in PvE? it's only in PVP iirc, but i might be wrong (and there will be a lot of Autistic screeching because of that when i think about it, it just feel so bad to make that kind of choice, really. AW don't need those change) Edited August 7, 2020 by Soren (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darkrai 3 Posted August 7, 2020 Why do i have the feeling that the balance will be fucked deliberately just for the sole purpose of making it incredibly painful to fight anything that isnt your tier or maybe one above, just so they can sell BH for higher prices, or just straight up sell BH tokens, staggered in tiers for their price obviously Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
itzjustrick 40 Posted August 7, 2020 14 minutes ago, darkrai said: Why do i have the feeling that the balance will be fucked deliberately just for the sole purpose of making it incredibly painful to fight anything that isnt your tier or maybe one above, just so they can sell BH for higher prices, or just straight up sell BH tokens, staggered in tiers for their price obviously Put down your tinfoil hat and think again Who am I kidding? We all know that's excactly what they're doing That said, my thoughts on this is just more p2w crap, something the game didn't need... Or it will be rip mm, since it will only match people with preferential MM to other with preferential MM (according to SS). With the already long queue times for random battles/glops, especially low-ish tiers (for glops), I am curious how much it will impact the MM. Still this just screams all out P2W, and that is like why, who asked for this, who wants it??? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lenticulas 9 Posted August 7, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, Haswell said: QoL Improvements: we're going full retard edition .. Oh come on Hassy, don't sugar coat it man - no one's gonna get it if you keep tip-toeing round what you really mean ;-) couldn't resist 4 hours ago, TeyKey1 said: Additionally I fear that the already long MM queues (at least for the PVP modes) will even suffer more. is there any confirmation re: IS THIS IN Glops too? Because, say at tier 5, you already have Hell's own job getting ANY match at all, even in a non-prem, and then with this, you are limited to T5-6 only, limiting your player pool even more. I suspect though, that there may be a time/queue size limit to this and it'll just dump it after a set time period, rather than never giving you a match. Of course this has no effect on T9-10. The other fallout from this is of course, those people with normal tanks, are gonna be more likely to get in the +2 match zone, because they will have to fight the leftovers from other peoples' matches. ... and the effects of mass Strelas + OPhelia + Premium MM too - that explains a lot Edited August 7, 2020 by Lenticulas (see edit history) Quote "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ivo 3 Posted August 7, 2020 If you're going to make it impossible to destroy the fuel tanks, make it so that when somebody is ammo racked THEY DIE! Like it's suppost to be working! Not just taking 600-1000 damage! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lenticulas 9 Posted August 7, 2020 and another thing. In glops you can only get a match on Narrows/GhostF/Roughneck unless you get in a Tier 8+ match. ie 8/9, 8/9/10, and so on. (i.e. no tier 5-6-7 tanks) If you get a t8 vehicle and Harden it, that means you can't fight t10, so you are only getting 7/8/9, if it's a 3 tier match, dooming yourself to more matches on those 3 maps. Quote "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Quantum_Ranger 14 Posted August 7, 2020 2 hours ago, TeyKey1 said: I really don't like this. According to SS all prems do have the preferential MM already. And I wonder how many people are actually using BH status now, anyway? If you have gold, you can get a prem tank and get fatter bonus and prem MM, if that's what you want. Why offer a halfway option if the object is to max out the dev's revenue? I suppose that with the rebalance (where there is less overlap between T7 and T8) the chances of T7 beating T9 will shrink, but isn't that the incentive to progress? T9-10 will have evenly matched opponents because there isn't (yet) a T11 or T12... so in the end it QoL seekers would be better off buying a T9 prem instead of spending on BH. Makes me wonder if there will be changes to the economy, where one will need BH in order to afford upgrades with a grind time better than current BP. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MK_Regular 24 Posted August 7, 2020 (edited) It's been a few minutes since I read this..... I'm still processing what was said here (especially in regards to P2W matchmaker edition and fuel fires), I'll come back once I sort it out. Edited August 7, 2020 by MK_Regular (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lt_Don_Shaljian 1 Posted August 7, 2020 (edited) In Update 0.33 battle hardened tanks will receive preferential matchmaking. In essence, you pay gold to get better matches. I am concerned about this. It sounds a bit like pay-to-win, one of the big reasons I left WOT. Merged with the other thread. -H Edited August 8, 2020 by Haswell (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Katsumoto 11 Posted August 7, 2020 So how will battle hardening with tier 9's and 10's work then? You don't have to worry about preferential match making at tier 10? So what do you gain from it at that point? Quote "If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Haswell 294 Posted August 8, 2020 16 hours ago, Haswell said: Battle-Hardened improvements – As you know, the Battle-Hardened status is a semi-premium state where, in exchange for Gold, your fully unlocked progression vehicle starts earning more Credits and XP. In Update 0.33, we’ll be giving it one more interesting function to increase its value. Battle-hardened vehicles will have preferential Matchmaking – that is, they will not encounter vehicles two Tiers higher in any of their battles. This will allow for more comfortable gameplay with this feature unlocked This is obviously big for PvP (as far as I know) since the power difference between the tiers are massive. I can easily foresee statpadders/sealclubbers/farmers BHing their preferred vehicles in order to guarantee weaker enemies. Whether or not this will wreck havoc on the MM remains to be seen, but this is practically pay2win under a thin veil. On the other hand, I don't see this affecting normal PvE too much because of how the tier brackets already work. I'm assuming pref MM will mean a +1/-2 tier spread instead of +2/-2. This will have zero benefit on tiers 2, 3 (on standard), 5, 6, 9 and 10, because all these tiers are either already at the top or just one tier below the top of their respective brackets. If however pref MM means a more serious +0/-2 tier spread, this will mean BH'd vehicles will always be top tier. This drops the unaffected in PvE tiers down to only 3, 6 and 10. For those who are unenlightened, the tier brackets for PvE are as follows:Map rotations change, but the brackets stay the same. There is however a significant downside to having pref MM: less powerful enemies mean less damage to farm, which in turn will result in lower base payouts before multipliers. This will actually make damage and XP farming missions (ie. BP/Raid) LONGER to complete, assuming you don't have any issues against harder enemies as it is. Imagine having to farm 450k damage at tier 8 but you never get to meet big sacks of hitpoints like superior Merk 4Ms and ATDUs. This will benefit the average inexperienced player maybe, but definitely detrimental to those who know what they are doing. I strongly suspect the BH change is a marketing/monetization decision rather than game design, which would also explain why this might get pushed ahead despite player backlash. If nothing else this will provide a method to suck up existing gold stockpiles and to entice players to purchase gold. I will not fall for it, and I hope others will have enough willpower to resist. 17 hours ago, Haswell said: Camo and Skin Appearance – There is significant group of players, who prefer their vehicles “as they are” and do not feel the need to purchase camouflages or skins, but have purchased it anyway for the camouflage bonus. In Update 0.33, such players will have the option to disable their own camouflage for their client in the game’s Settings tab. To you, your tank will appear without a skin or camouflage. To the other players, it will appear as if it has a skin or camouflage unlocked. Please note, however, that old vehicles with fixed camouflage (commonly referred to as “reskins”) will not be affected by this setting. Good, I don't want to see gaudy skins like police lights. Not that people couldn't already mod all existing camos so that they are effectively invisible anyway. 17 hours ago, Haswell said: Avatar and Title Improvements – Player avatars and titles will become more prominent, appearing for example in your Friend list or, more importantly, on loading screens. This will become noticeable especially in PvE where you’ll be able to show your vintage event avatar to everyone who’s getting in battle with you. Meh. 17 hours ago, Haswell said: No more Fuel Fires – This is a minor mechanics change but still a useful one. In Update 0.33, vehicles will not suffer from fires caused by their fuel tanks. All fuel tank modules will effectively become indestructible. It will still be possible to set the engines on fire, but the fuel will be protected. This is NOT a "minor" change. Knowing where your weak spots are and how to protect them is a crucial gameplay mechanic and personal skill, as is guaranteeing fires by intentionally targeting and destroying fuel tanks. This skill and knowledge is invaluable when attempting to complete Detonator (5 kills by fire or explosion) or any other mission that involves starting fires. This screams "remove player skill" to me and dumbs down gameplay to appease casual and inexperienced players. Why not remove ammo rack fires as well, seeing how there are plenty of vehicles with frontal ammo racks and also plenty of players who don't know this? To address all the "ammo racks are easy to hit" arguments, is there any reason at all why fuel tank fires can't exist alongside with ammo rack fires? Does it benefit gameplay in any way by removing one of the only two sources of guaranteed fires? Before anyone tries to say "engine fire", note that they are NOT guaranteed and entirely subjected to RNG. 0.33 is looking more and more bleak by the day. Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lenticulas 9 Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Haswell said: Good, I don't want to see gaudy skins like police lights Would you still see other peoples'? The desc isn't crystal clear on this one. 2 hours ago, Haswell said: I strongly suspect the BH change is a marketing/monetization decision rather than game design 100% agree. I can see them sitting round a table asking: is there any feature that no-one uses, costs gold, and we could somehow persuade them to blow gold on it. Wouldn't be surprised if there was more of this coming. Something to do with buying camos for gold, or worst case: gold-retrofits, or just go full-WoT-retard and have gold ammo... At that point, I'm outa here I also think it helps, or it used to help in WOT, to view every decision from the point of view of a. Pvp. The devs seem to be mostly focused on this. b. IRL Cash/credits/gold. If a decision makes no sense from a gameplay perspective, it's this. Increased credit or gold sinks, or pay-irl-cash-to-win Edited August 8, 2020 by Lenticulas (see edit history) Quote "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cozmic 1 Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) The BH was there in the first place to give you a little extra on normal progression vehicles, especially in T9 and t10 since there were no premium vehicles back then. Now that there are, the BH status for T9 and t10 is pretty much obsolete. To say that you will get a preferred match in, lets say, T8 is just bollocks. Why would you pay a significant amount of gold to get a progression vehicle BH when you have around 20 T8 premium vehicles at your disposal? They get preferred MM anyway. It just don't make sense. And I am not even talking about the camo's!! Edited August 8, 2020 by Cozmic (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travlla 5 Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) Won't this BH pref mm, make already long que times in PVP longer? =seems a shit move and a bit PTW Camo and avatar stuff= meh seems a waste of time, but isn't negative to the game No fuel fires= pure bullshit, dumbing down the game, for people who couldn't be bothered or are to stupid to learn their tanks. Edited August 8, 2020 by Travlla (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lenticulas 9 Posted August 8, 2020 11 hours ago, Katsumoto said: ... how will battle hardening with tier 9's and 10's work then? On the face of it, of course it's pointless, but if they were sneaky, they could still make it more likely that your match in a T10 was a T8-9-10, or T9-10, than just a straight T10 only one. Then you'd still get the advantage of more chances to shoot lower tier tanks Quote "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
itzjustrick 40 Posted August 8, 2020 I mean, since this game has such a healthy playerbase it actually doesn't matter that much... It isn't like those matchmaking rules get thrown out of the window after a certain amount of time. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Azdule 26 Posted August 8, 2020 I have to say, some of these changes make no difference to me - the camo, avatar or title things don't really change much. The BH tanks making them +1 rather than +2 MM, as it currently stands I can see it being a cash grab rather than any meaningful change. Not quite sure what the decision was to introduce this but as it stands, I'd like to see the other changes being brought in with .33 to see if those have different MM criteria. For all we know, .33 will change the MM based on a number of different factors that we have 0 clue about atm. It could also be that it changes nothing. It could mean that standard PvP does become about playing the OP tank for it's tier, as it's normal counter would be +2...but I'd argue that if the balance means that a tank has a counter that's 2 tiers higher, something is wrong with it. From the theory, I can't see that this will be game breaking at present. I'd like to see how the other rebalances work out before confirming my stance on it. There is also the part that I suspect a lot of players will simply just play tanks to progress - for those long time players, we might dabble in BH a tank or 2 for when we want less stressful games. Regarding the fuel tank fire's - I've had a quick look through at tanks that I could see this being a major factor. I know Has advised the Bradley has it's fuel tank in the front. I know the Mercs have theirs in the front but with both of these tanks, the engine is right there next to it. I can't really think of any times I would look at a tank that I can pen and think 'Oh I should aim for the fuel tank because it could start a fire if I destroy it'. Most of the time, if I can pen it destroy a competent I'll either aim ammo rack, for likely large explosion and fire, or slowing reload times or the turret ring so I can then take it out of the fight for a short time. Perhaps if somebody could give me examples to consider? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Katsumoto 11 Posted August 9, 2020 16 hours ago, Lenticulas said: On the face of it, of course it's pointless, but if they were sneaky, they could still make it more likely that your match in a T10 was a T8-9-10, or T9-10, than just a straight T10 only one. Then you'd still get the advantage of more chances to shoot lower tier tanks For example, I have the K2 battle hardened because I play it alot along with the Type 10. If you make it -1 then the only saving grace it has is an advantage to the tier 8's that won't see me. Not really a benefit to someone that battle hardens a tier 10. Quote "If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Azdule 26 Posted August 9, 2020 7 hours ago, Katsumoto said: For example, I have the K2 battle hardened because I play it alot along with the Type 10. If you make it -1 then the only saving grace it has is an advantage to the tier 8's that won't see me. Not really a benefit to someone that battle hardens a tier 10. The way I am reading from the description it would just mean that you would have +1 / -2 MM so I think it would be mainly aimed at tier 8's so they don't fight tier 10's. Maybe tier 7 but I'm not sure they get matched to tier 9 often Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lenticulas 9 Posted August 9, 2020 58 minutes ago, Azdule said: The way I am reading from the description it would just mean that you would have +1 / -2 MM so I think it would be mainly aimed at tier 8's so they don't fight tier 10's. Maybe tier 7 but I'm not sure they get matched to tier 9 often Since if you BHed a T10, you get no benefit from No Tier 11 & 12, they might adjust the MM so, you would be more often in games like 1x T10 You 2x T9 7x T8 So you would get increased chances to kill easy targets, rather than, say 10x T10 Quote "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites