August 22 Q&A with SS - Answers and Discussion

[Haswell 294]

As described in the Q&A questions thread (https://armoredlabs.net/index.php?/topic/59785-qa-with-ss-post-your-questions-here/), here are the second round of answers provided by SS. A bit dry this time, mainly because the questions were pretty clear cut with no wiggle room for further discussions. Lets hope the next round of questions will be better.

If your question didn't get answered this time or you would like to ask more questions, feel free to submit them in the questions thread.

Quote

1.       When is the fix for the MBTs not counting as heavy tanks coming?

I’ll need a full list of affected vehicles so that I can start investigations.

2.       Will the Leopard 1 MEXAS and other more modern or unique variants of low-tier vehicles be introduced? If memory serves me right you were looking at putting AVGP into AW as well.

Each Battle Path has one or two low-Tier vehicles and there are various event vehicles also, so the chances of interesting low-Tier vehicles appearing are high. As for this Leopard 1 version – we currently have no plans for it.

3.       Will the Public Test Server ever come back again for major changes, or it's deemed unnecessary by the developers.

It’s one of the long-term things we’d like to re-introduce. However, such a server would only appear for major changes and right now, we are more focusing on the Battle Path. As for the “bug-catching” event suggested – we have a long backlog of bugs we want to address. Discovering bugs isn’t the bottleneck of the process, actually addressing them is.

4.       Regarding the usual "desynchronization" issue, i.e. game client fails to recognize a disconnection from server and does not reconnect automatically, is there anything that can be done about it other than players restarting the game manually? Even if affected players reconnect, it may be too late already in some cases as their vehicles may get destroyed during the downtime, which can be really frustrating.

Unfortunately, connection losses are a fact of internet life. We’re constantly monitoring the server’s health but right now, we don’t have anything to offer in this direction.

5.       Are new players learning the game mechanics comfortably? The current training mission is far from adequate and doesn't translate well into actual gameplay because the player controls a god-mode T-72 against Tier 1 bots.

Good point. FTUE (First-Time User Experience) is one of the major weakspots of Armored Warfare that we have identified and are actively working on a new concept for the early Tiers. Might take a while though.

6.       Is there a plan to return overhauled fuel tank modules?

No.

7.       Are there plans for other Story characters to become commanders as well?

Perhaps in the future, but not in the near one.

8.       Are there any plans to optimize the game's performance? Or such thing wouldn't be possible due to CryEngine's limitations?

The game is fairly optimized already as it is. You’d have to be more specific.

9.       Can we get the time it takes for a damaged wheel to be repaired on the HUD? ATM we only got a timer when they get destroyed.

This is not really a question I can answer. Perhaps in the future.

10.   How is the Arjun performing so far? Will the Arjun receive buffs in the future, such as improving its reload or making its PELE ammo more useful?

At this point it’s fine and does not need any immediate buffs or nerfs.

11.   If Ophelia is to be reworked, how would you rework her so that she becomes less broken in PvP?

That’s a tough question – generally speaking, we can’t nerf her to the ground, that wouldn’t be fair to the players who already obtained her. We can adjust the main skill somehow but we haven’t made any decisions yet.

12.   What was the reasoning for placing the sniper mode camera at the bore of the gun? Have the developers considered moving the sniper mode camera to the appropriate gunner sight positions for the various tanks? Why/why not.

The reason is simple – comfortable and easy to understand gameplay. What good would it do to have half of your view obstructed by the body of the gun aside from uncomfortable gameplay? We could make all sorts of realism-based decisions such as have tracks repaired much longer, but would that make the game better? Not really.

13.   Have the developers considered giving more top Tier tanks the AI aiming module - the one that shows where to shoot to hit a fast moving target/auto compensates for movement when having a target locked? It's a good quality of life module for casual players and i believe at least top Tier tanks should have it.

No, it’s a feature of a specific vehicle. We can discuss that; perhaps more than one vehicle can have it in the future.

14.   What are the developer opinions on separate tuning of balance for PvE and PvP?

No. The vehicle characteristic setting system is complex as it is, having two of them would require years of work for little to no benefit. But more importantly, such questions cannot be retrofitted to games without a total game overhaul.

15.   Will there be any possibility to have other garages selectable in the options, such as the ones from older seasons?

We’re looking into it but it’s a really low priority task, as you can imagine. The concept of having server-controlled season-appropriate garages is the preferred solution.

16.   How do you feel about the recent trend of introducing progressively fictional vehicles into the game? First the Kornet-D1, now the Type 99B and ZTZ-20, will these precedencies of fictional vehicles lead to even more fake tanks in the future?

It’s a concern, but probably not as much as you think. The Kornet-D1 was a special case where we knew the proposal was realistic but nobody had seen it and the actual appearance would only come out in the form of a few photos or a video (can’t remember) after our model was finished. Oh well, not a great situation but rather than making the model from scratch, we prefer to introduce new models for you instead. As for the Chinese tanks, they were requested by our Chinese partner as we did want to introduce more Chinese-themed content. Both tanks should be treated as a single case. With that being said, we won’t introduce more fake tanks unless absolutely necessary.

 

[ceejee007 7]

Have read the Q&A with SS, but am I the only one who thinks we hardly get any answers ?

personally I came here / to this forum to get more info to still remain confidence with the game (due to the fact that I got more and more worries about several issues in the game and the future of this game).

Items I see, and which worries me are:

1) Players leaving the game, with as latest " record" yesterday evening about 19.00 CET with only 1 person online in my friend list of about 120 friends. Clan members of my own clan, who hardly play anymore.

2) Toxic behavior in the game with a lot of RU language (easy to read with filter, it is just *****, you *******). What will be more and more if the western players are leaving. Reporting is useless, reporting mechanism does not work, sending tickets are way to much work, and when you send a replay they want screenshots, and when provide screenshots they want.... including all info of my computer / videocard etc)

3) Get the feeling that there are more and more cheats present (aim mods, lag mods (more and more is misfire after the first 3/4 were hits, but hardly the last one),radar mods (they shoot and hit targets who were never open or spotted) are in use.... And if you address it then I get the " tin foiled hat"  reaction as in WoT in the past.

4) Have the feeling more and mote that AW rather loses the " old player base"  then listen to them. Same with the Q&A. We, as players, express our feeling but hardly any reaction or answers (yes, we are thinking / working on it, or soon... / maybe...are other items to address (but still got the " trade button" and the new game center), but what about the known game issues ? When will those been addressed and for example a timeline of fixing.

Yes this all worries me (a lot)  and makes that I hardly invest any real money in the game (which I know does not help the future of this game).

[knutliott 41]

10 hours ago, ceejee007 said:

3) Get the feeling that there are more and more cheats present (aim mods, lag mods (more and more is misfire after the first 3/4 were hits, but hardly the last one),radar mods (they shoot and hit targets who were never open or spotted) are in use.... And if you address it then I get the " tin foiled hat"  reaction as in WoT in the past.

Armored Warfare uses server-side authentication, which means that these "cheats" you think exist aren't possible.

Cheats like you're talking about rely on using information in the client that isn't being displayed to the user in order to gain an advantage.  But the AW client is only told what it needs to know, so there isn't any extra information available for a cheat to use.

[ceejee007 7]

Yeahhh the same thing I heard by WoT.... the tinfoiled hat discussion was there for... about... 3years. And afterwards was it indeed possible with the " warpack"  cheats.

And some may be called " aimmods" or there were " radar mods"  or whatever, but for me those " mods"  who give you an advantage, are quite simple one thing: cheats.

So for me the sever-side authentication is a nice item, but certainly not " bulletproof".