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Qbicle

In Development: Artillery Overhaul

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Source:

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/development-artillery-overhaul

 

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Today, we’d like to tell you more about our plans to change the Self-Propelled Gun class of vehicles that we’ll be implementing this summer.

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To understand why these changes are needed, we have to go way back to the very beginning of Armored Warfare development where it was decided to bring indirect fire to the battlefield because, well, there are players who like this sort of thing – to sit in one position, point, click and... boom goes the enemy tank without any fear of retaliation.

Not that there aren’t such vehicles present in PvP even today – you can absolutely take your 122mm Buratino and trash a few MBTs by a stream of rockets. The difference is, driving a Buratino always puts you at risk of being immobilized or knocked out. In case of indirect-firing SPGs, there was no such danger in PvP except for occasional counter-battery fire where SPG players would target each other and trade shots across the map in a game of hide and seek.

The veterans of this game might remember the SPG class being repeatedly tweaked but the conclusion we came to was that no matter what we did, artillery in PvP was simply a failed concept that wouldn’t ever be fun. And so we restricted the class to PvE and left it there essentially unchanged except for an occasional change of high-explosive shells that led to its current, impotent state. Indeed, the SPGs are barely played these days (despite being one of five main classes in the game, only roughly 2.4 percent of Tier 9-10 matches are played with SPGs). We aim to change that.

And so, long story short, we’ll be making the following changes:

  • Artillery vehicles will be overhauled to fire directly
  • Afterwards, artillery will be allowed in all modes

This is not an unrealistic change – artillery has often been used this way in recent conflicts. There are, however, some challenges to this task. First of all, artillery generally lacks armor. Secondly, artillery typically cannot fire kinetic shells.

That is why we are planning to overhaul the current artillery vehicles into highly nimble and fast (roughly similar to Light Tanks of the same Tier), lightly-armored machines that will typically fire powerful HE and (newly added) HEAT shells. In other words, they’ll rely more on single shot damage than on their rate of fire.

They will retain their Smoke and White Phosphorus shells and will be able to switch quickly between this utility ammunition and damage-dealing rounds, but every ammunition type will use a direct fire aiming reticle similar to the current TOS-1M Buratino (with a flat, horizontal-oriented aiming circle instead of the classic tank one). The accuracy will, naturally, not be all that great and long-range fire will resemble bombardment rather than sniper shots. Lower calibers (122mm) will have a rate of fire advantage while higher calibers will focus more on damage. Additional shell types will also be available for various individual vehicles.

And that’s pretty much it. The last thing we’d like to mention are the Premium SPGs. There are only three in the game at the moment – two Abbots and Msta-S – which makes things easier. These will initially not be overhauled and will stay as they are (including their restriction to the PvE modes). After all, players purchased them the way they are now for a reason. We will monitor the post-release feedback and, if that will be the wish of their owners, we’ll change these too.

 

Several comments and replies from SilentStalker on official Discord server:

  • Regarding the potential burst damage from a 4-shot clip PLZ-05, "Well obviously that's going to need tuning. Like, removing the PLZ clip or making it more manageable."
  • He turned down the idea of scrapping the class and relabelling SPGs to TDs, saying "TDs come with some design expectations, like high accuracy."
    (Side note: the idea of a class merge, specifically combining LTs and TDs into Fire Support Vehicle or FSV class, had also been rejected before)
  • Having both indirect fire and direct fire modes is also a no-no, "Because we specifically do not want indirect mode in PvP."
  • TOS-1M Buratino's 220mm rockets somewhat influence SPG's future direction
  • It's not possible for SPGs to behave differently between game modes; "I don't know the details, I am not a programmer. But assigning more than two POV to a vehicle breaks the game."
  • Overhaul is still at proposal stage, "right now it's basically a "we'd like that" stage, nobody started working on nit."
  • "The change is not supposed to appeal to the players who are perfectly fine with the way it is. It's meant to appeal to other players who don't have SPG vehoces yet and maybe make them more active."
  • "There are more reasons for the overhaul than that. For example, SPGs actually actively decrease low-Tier retention of new players. They decrease its average because arties now suck on most maps."

 

The idea of changing artillery into direct fire only had been tested in Balance 2.0 PTS before:

 

The results were apparently not up to expectations, and this idea was dropped. In Update 0.19 SPG as a class was limited to PvE only, and bot SPGs were removed from all existing maps at the time (Spec Ops was not out yet, as was Desert Path which had a chance to spawn an SPG in an off-grid location in relation to a specific secondary objective). Illumination (free spotting in a designated spot) and smoke shells as well as counter-battery pings (the ability to see the approximate location where an enemy SPG fired a shot on the minimap) were also removed. From an anecdotal experience, the SPGs' firing arc was greatly reduced, and the splash radius was also made smaller since then.

SPGs were reintroduced to GlOps mode in 2020 together with smoke shells. White Phosphorous shells were added instead of illumination shells, but for some reasons they do not help reset cap in that mode (they should) as they would in PvE even to this day. These utility shells now have very high firing arc, almost mortar-like. At some time high calibre HE shells dealt tremendous module damage, and while this was a problem mainly associated with high tier MBTs, SPG also benefitted from this, but it was largely reversed for Update 0.35. Otherwise they more or less played the same since 2017's Update 0.19: relatively low firing arc, small splash radius, map/terrain restrictions, and generally low utility caused some players to re-adapt and play such vehicles in direct fire mode, and this is the direction that the developers are currently going for.

Edited by Qbicle (see edit history)
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Meh.  That just makes them gun TDs.  At some theoretical level there's no need for those to be separate classes because there's nothing truly distinct about SPGs at that point.

Yeah, okay, they can still fire smoke and WP.  Meh.

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Wee! Derp-tanks 2.1, guess at this point even the glue inhaling MBT campers would rather play against the very first version of artillery in AW.

I really don't get the fuss about indirect fire… it's delayed, you get a warning, there is a giant tracer and vapor trail. There is really no mystery at all from where the fire is coming from.
Fire and maneuver, it is that simple.

In the very first version, they even got fully spotted after firing for every SPG on the other team for 5 sec and faded back to hidden after further 3 sec.

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I'm a bit conflicted. On one hand, I like that they're adding direct fire and a different playstyle for the class; but on the other, I'm not too keen on having direct fire on every shell, nor significantly increasing the speed of every SPG. If they just added the improved HE and restricted it to direct fire, while keeping indirect on smoke/WP shells, I think SPGs would've filled the niche of stealthy support-oriented sniping in PvP. Sure, it would have a slight overlap with TDs, but the playstyle would still be more laid-back than being at the front.

Anyway, with how they're approaching it, SPGs would likely end up having a more hit-and-run playstyle with very high alpha. I think that it would be a fun change, but the speed shouldn't necessarily be similar to light tanks; maybe slightly faster than how these are now, but not fast enough to be extremely forgiving for dumb plays (active scouting in an SPG, anyone?). It's a bit sad to see an entire firing mode be removed outright, but this may be the better choice than adding stun mechanics like in a certain other game.

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Source:

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/direct-fire-spg-testing

 

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Not so long ago, we unveiled our plan to overhaul the Self-Propelled Gun vehicle class into direct-firing vehicles. We have gathered your preliminary feedback but in order to evaluate it further, we’ve prepared a demonstration for you.

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The plan is rather simple. In the next update, we’ll be introducing a direct-firing version of the Tier 6 Akatsiya SPG as a separate vehicle (temporarily in the Tank Destroyer class) and will be handing it out to every active account.

For one week, you’ll have the opportunity to try it out and submit your feedback via the form linked below. After the week passes, this vehicle will be removed from your account and its performance analyzed along with your feedback.

Click on the image below to open the form:

 

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The following rewards are available during the testing:

  • Win 5 matches in PvP to receive 250 Battle Coins for the Eclipse Battle Path
  • Win 10 matches in PvE to recieve another 250 Battle Coins for the Eclipse Battle Path
  • Three randomly chosen feedback posts submitted via the form will receive 6.000 Battle Coins

Please note:

  • The event begins on May 25 (with a regular Thursday maintenance)
  • The testbed vehicle will be removed from your account after the end of the event
  • Visual customization used on the testbed vehicle will not be compensated in any way (install anything at your own peril)
  • The testbed vehicle does not count towards any missions or objectives and may experience other issues not connected to the tests
  • The vehicle is for the purposes of this test introduced as a Tank Destroyer
  • Only those feedback posts where the submitter did clearly put some effort into them are eligible for a reward
  • The rewards will be sent after the end of the event

 


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SPG is fun in PVE beacuse you can pick the right map and spot with vision range retrofits since you have usable gun depression, while constantly dealing dmg by switching the rounds.

It is too inaccurate, especially in arty view and splash dmg is non existent. All they have to do is make it a one shot kill soft targets machine in PVE, especially autocannons as they are stupidly OP and add another direct aiming view but I can't imagine such a behemot running as fast as a light tank and inaccuracy is not a fun factor but rather another frustration. Light tanks have speed to counter spg fire so let them fear arty rather then just sit in the middle of the map and spot everything, while pushing MBT's are blind as a bat which is the reason this game will never be a succes

 

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Just give them the "ad hoc" refit in the upgrades screen , call it direct fire upgrade or something so you can get your choice of running then either way . maybe a Hv ap round for better accuracy and flatter trajectory .

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On 5/28/2023 at 4:32 PM, Arcticwolfbz said:

Just give them the "ad hoc" refit in the upgrades screen , call it direct fire upgrade or something so you can get your choice of running then either way .

Apparently, the issue is not a majority of artillery players missing a direct fire mode, but a “majority” of the other classes not being able to deal with indirect fire. :classic_rolleyes:

Hence, all the other heavy-handed nerfs and redesigns to make it a “utility support class” in a game that rewards damage done / kills above all else.

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Source:

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/artillery-overhaul-test-results

 

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Following our earlier Artillery Overhaul announcement, you had the opportunity to test an overhauled Akatasiya in the field for the entirety of the last week. We’d like to thank all of you who did so and submitted their opinions via our survey.

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We have gathered more than a thousand detailed pieces of feedback and have the weekend reading and analyzing them. Today, we’d like to share the results with you.

The most important thing first – the test was a success with roughly three quarters of players supporting the direct fire overhaul. Specifically:

  • In the EU region, 72.5% of players support the overhaul
  • In the RU region, 74.7% of players support the overhaul

The more detailed results are also remarkably identical for both regions:

  • Firepower-wise, most of you thought the vehicle was adequate (60%) or underpowered (30%)
  • The HEAT shell was deemed relatively weak (55% adequate, 40% underpowered)
  • The protection level was deemed either adequate (55%) or too low (42%)
  • The mobility was deemed adequate by most (80%)

In other words, as you can see, almost nobody believes the vehicle was overpowered and a good chunk of you believes it was actually adequate in most aspects, which is a good start. Regarding detailed feedback, the most common points were the following:

  • You expect longer reload time but also higher damage per shot
  • You expect burst damage potential (such as the three-round magazine the Akatsiya has now)
  • You expect additional ammunition types
  • Protection levels need to be increased (but no too much)
  • Smoke shells and WP shells need to be tweaked

All in all, these results surpass our expectations and, as a result, we’ll be proceeding with the overhaul while taking your feedback into account by, for example:

  • Changing the firepower towards higher damage per shot and longer reload times
  • Improving the HEAT shells
  • Adding new shell types and checking the current ones

The overhaul will take some time to execute and more tests might be necessary but this is the road we’ll be taking. You may expect the results this summer. The Premium SPGs will stay exactly as they are now, for the time being, but any future SPG vehicles will arrive in the direct fire form.

 

 


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