Storm Talks a bit more about 9.1 Changes

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/291512.html

Hello everyone,

apparently, the 9.1 changes caused quite a shitstorm under Storm’s posts. People started being rude as hell, some were banned, comments were blocked and such. Storm was actually quite annoyed about that, making a post, where he asked people to be civilized. The buffs and nerfs of vehicles will be discussed on Monday.

Anyway, here’s more info gleaned from the discussion:

- apparently, unlike EU and US, RU server doesn’t have the “restore sold premium tanks” mechanism, it’s still being tested there
- low performance of Hidden Village map is connected to the existence of tons of small objects on the map
- developers are putting the “HD conveyor” (mass production of HD tank models) in motion currently
- developers are working on both CPU and GPU (render) multicore support
- Storm admits that patch 9.0 was very complicated and after its release and that only a little was added to the patch of what was promised (in general)
- developers are working on general fixes for tank color
- “Xbox-like” weather effects did not get introduced to the PC version yet, because “there are completely different issues on PC and we have to deal with them first and then we do weather”


- for now, new portraits for Soviet crews are not planned
- apparently, the buffs/nerfs will still be discussed, Storm got an idea so that players don’t get butthurt so much about it
- developers already transformed the viewrange into a circle, right now they are testing the mechanism so it doesn’t create some sort of problems, it will not appear in 9.1 tho
- Strongholds in 9.1? “For now, no comment”
- Kharkov map will not be implemented in HD
- “Dynamic FOV” (mentioned in the 9.1 patchnotes) means the FOV will change based on the zoom from the tank
- for now, the developer position on not displaying which players have chat disabled has not changed
- high winrate of a vehicle by itself is not a reason to nerf it, it is a reason to check other statistics of the vehicle – damage, damage done to the tank, average XP, scouting, player skill percentage (SS: as in how many noobs/pros play that tank) atc.
- regarding further nerf requests: Foch has been nerfed “to shit” already, T57 doesn’t stand out in practically no statistic anywhere (it’s possible to do something about it, but it has low priority), KV-1S will be split into two vehicles, which will come in HD quality
- Tiger P was nerfed, because it has on its tier 55 percent winrate. The argument that this is because skilled players play it is false, WG has the statistic of the skill of players playing a tank and Tiger P does not differ in it from other tanks. There are many other statistics Tiger P is too good in, not just winrate, that’s why it was nerfed
- Storm admits that balancing department did make mistakes in the past, such as the overbuffing of the Tiger, or “invisible Borsig”
- some player was whining that balancers don’t play their own game – Storm linked the account of one such balancer, he adds that all the balancers are like that – skilled players with high amount of battles

96 thoughts on “Storm Talks a bit more about 9.1 Changes

  1. “Foch has been nerfed “to shit” already”
    100% agree. Perhaps its time to buff it? Its pretty worthless tank now IMO.

    • Yep, they nerfed the engine, the armor, AND the gun. Any ONE of those things would have been ok to balance it but they did all three.

      In my opinion all they needed to do was remove the autoloader, or even make the reload between shells slower (and keep the gun damage nerf they applied to the range).

      • Remove 1 shell from the container, double the time between shots, make gun dispersion much worse and give it 3000 hitpoints…

        • Maus level hitpoints? are you retarded?

          what i would do is increase the traverse speed so its more nimble and decrease the aim time a bit

  2. - “Dynamic FOV” (mentioned in the 9.1 patchnotes) means the FOV will change based on the zoom from the tank

    Changing the FOV is what zoom is all about O.o (it’s not like you are moving your camera closer to the target when you zoom in)
    I think this is more related to the arcade view somehow.

    On the other hand, it’s interesting how but hurt some people can get if you take their toys away …

    • They should also make one fixed aspect ratio for everyone – with forced window mode or black bars – so everyone really has the same FOV. Now they support a bunch of old resoutions which only add strain to old computers when rendering unnecessary sky or ground. And that would really be about equalizing chances, 1.78 apect ratio is as close to natural FOV as you can get.

          • Obsolete? What a laughable claim.
            Not everyone has the good fortune to be able to do nothing but play games and watch movies on their computer. The ability to be able to read or edit text and work in spreadsheets without constantly and incredibly irritatingly needing to scroll is an absolutely essential feature, and the reason that most business desktops use 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio monitors, which are still made in great quantity and by no means obsolete.
            Shockingly, one may desire to both work AND play on the same machine, and needing to make my usefully tall monitor pointlessly shorter to fit your excessively, stupidly wide one is hardly a fair thing to do to me as punishment for wanting to be able to work.
            What’s worse is that even those who go for a compromise in a 16:10 setup would be similarly screwed over, which would be even more of a kick to the seat of the pants.
            Needless to say, this is a TERRIBLE idea.

    • Actually, i believe that is how zoom works. Zoom in mods are banned on NA server because they move the camera and allow you to see through bushes that shouldnt be transparent, acting like foliage reducer

      • Zoom mods are not illegal. Lens scope modification is but zoom mods in either direction are not illegal as long as they aren’t free roam.

      • Woot… I find T-150 superior to KV-1S already and I play it a lot. T-150 has the same gun characteristic as the KV-1S apart from dmg, but can shoot twice as fast as the KV-1S. 2 times more chance of dealing dmg thus giving you the upper hand. Not that KV-1S is bad, it just too easy to kill when not handled properly. Besides, T-150 has more armor.

        T-150 FTW ;)

          • VK was popular until the thing was changed from the MBT that it was to a slow heavy tank.

            Though for a heavy tank, the T-150 isn’t slow – on the flat it hits 30-35km/h.

  3. I’m happy about almost all the changes. There are a few things they could of done but didn’t, but everything they did do makes sense to me. Not sure what the whining is about.

    I’m a bit worried about their balance of close quarter brawling maps and vision maps. I agree that a few patches ago the number of campy vision maps was obscene – but since that time they’ve cut into the amount of those maps by a vast amount. It’s gotten to the point where many vision vehicles are noticeably impacted by the lack of maps in which they can contribute. 9.1 will bring yet another city map – which would normally be fine (I like city maps!), but I cant help but worry they don’t see the bigger picture.

    • You really don’t have a reason to worry, because if you, a random internet person can see the “bigger picture” the devs already know lf it for a while :)

  4. Its not just what they do what annoys the hell out of people its the way they do it they lack any customer relation skills in relation to change’s.In anything come to that matter. They are like a bunch of cack handed goons.
    They are like Simple Simons.

    • You cant camp with it so good now? OH, what a shame. They should buff it and also buff arty so skilless tomato trash can do some damage again…

  5. What about M5 Stuart, Chaffee, and Panzer III that had their models slightly changed in 9.0 tests and were then returned to their current state. Weren’t those supposed to be rebalanced in 9.1?

  6. Interesting thoughts, even though Storm forgot to mention the biggest mistake of the balancing department: the jack of all trades device KV-1S with its good combination of speed, firepower and “wonder-ricochet” armour and no serious drawbacks. He can even snipe to a certain degree with its 122mm gun since the accuracy buff for all guns. Weird.

    Well, I’ve played over 1.000 matches in Tiger (P) and I have to admit that it is better than all other Tier 7 Heavies and only surpassed by the T-29 and (new) Tiger I. But the Tiger P is still not as outstanding as the KV-1S at Tier 6.

    All in all, I’m curious about the buff/nerf discussion on Monday.

    • KV-1S has got -8 gun depression on the 122mm gun, all other – 76mm, 85mm have -5 degrees. Fuck logic, eh?
      They could at least change that, it can’t be so hard.

      • Yeah, I’m not sure why that is…I think it is a remnant from the days when gun depression was viewed as a balance parameter (now, they try to be realistic with it, although most Russian tanks are still overbuffed).

        The 122mm on the KV-1S had only -2 degrees in real life – that’s less than the dreaded SU101. It’s even stranger because the same 122mm in *the same turret* on the IS has only -6 (real IS had -5). IMO drop it to -2 and it might actually be balanced at tier 6.

        Honestly, I’d rather have that than a new, nerfed tier 6 with the same -8. Or, to put it another way, the 1S change is a chance to balance AND increase realism, so there’s no reason not to at least reduce the depression.

        • Real life tanks could bed down into soft ground and get a couple of extra degrees, whereas in-game terrain is all solid surface.

            • Soldier doesn’t dig for the vehicle, use vehicle’s tracks..depending on soil doesn’t take much time.

              • Exactly – in soft ground the tracks will tear up a depression and lower the front of the tank relative to the surrounding ground. Just neutral-steer a bit back and forth and dig in.

                Of course we can thank that when driving in swamp/mud/etc the models don’t bog down and require a tow….

  7. i wonder if the kv1s split will give you a tank for free, if you have that OPness in your garage… i want to see it nerfed, and laugh, then sell both and get free slot hahah
    finally some good news

    • Most probably you won’t get any free stuff.
      I believe it will be the same as with recent Pz IV and StuG splits. You have your old vehicle in garage and another new one to buy in tech tree.

      But as 3 similar T10 mediums in RU tree is not enough, so we will get 3 similar T7 heavies too :(

    • They won’t. No free tank for StuG owners ,so why would KV1s owners get one?
      OH, wait… russian bias!

  8. - apparently, unlike EU and US, RU server doesn’t have the “restore sold premium tanks” mechanism, it’s still being tested there
    Does it concern the automatic system that they implemented on NA? Because we do not have that on EU, we still have to make a support ticket and it is restricted to one use per account.

  9. he should write something about these massive fps drops that get worse with every hotfix they bring….

    • Do they get worse? I certainly didn’t notice anything. Please provide screenshots from 9.0 and after the micropatch.

  10. Yeah right, skilled players who only play Russian tanks most of the time and hates Germans. So of course, it’s only sensible to nerf germans to oblivion.

    No wonder the Russian bias.

    If they want proper balancers, they should only hire players from US, EU.

    • Time to start calling people anti-russian because that’s what you clearly are. I guess they need more people like you in Ukraine…

  11. Guess I’m partly to blame for the Tiger P nerf; got a 58% winrate after 1400 battles

    • I had a decent WR with it, but I can’t stand to play it now. The future looks bleak for the P in my garage.

  12. - developers already transformed the viewrange into a circle, right now they are testing the mechanism so it doesn’t create some sort of problems, it will not appear in 9.1 tho

    This might be a typo, but isn’t viewrange already a circle, and render range is square?
    I still think making 600m circle for render is too little for 50% of time.

  13. rly this guy is balancer… what ever. btw most of the players above 20k can tell what tanks are problem… OP or just underpowered. and also im pretty sure they play stock tanks, with all that free exp and gold on WG accounts.

    • I wonder if he “ballances” based on gold ammo spam or if he tries to play the tanks with standard ammo. His WR screams of gold ammo spammer to me.

      • Or a lot of skill; Gold ammo is not pay to win on most tanks, especially since the HEAT Nerf.

        Just look at morgotz (eu), he plays his E50M without gold (or very very little), can check his replays on wotreplays.

        Same story…

      • That’s because E50M doesn’t need gold ammo to be effective. It already has great gun. T-54 on the other hand…. I’m pretty sure his WR and dpb would be anywhere near if he only shot regular AP and not HEAT like majority of players do, because why not if you can.

        • Well, T-54 is only one tank-and yes it is ridiculous with Gold (higher DPB than my 121).

          But that doesn’t mean he only spams gold.

          Also, SerB himself once stated that WG employees don’t get free gold, and even he actually has to pay for the shit. Even if I find that a bit hard to believe…

          • I just wonder if they get the gold with discounted price or with “regular” price? Just asking.

  14. - low performance of Hidden Village map is connected to the existence of tons of small objects on the map

    That’s why WoT need DX11, then you can have a bazillion small object because you load it once and then instantiate. That’s what games like BF3 and BF4 do and that why they run smooth with huge amounts of objects on the map.
    But we’re back to the point no 76 why BigWorld is shit. Seriously, 25% of Hidden village is the fucking inaccessible mountain, 50% is the hills and plain and there’s nothing there, and the rest is the “city” which kills FPS, so the “tons of small objects” is a little village.

  15. - Storm admits that balancing department did make mistakes in the past, such as the overbuffing of the Tiger, or “invisible Borsig”

    Should have listened to Zlobny instead of SerB’s ego.

    • But, but, but they have Veider now. You know. That shitlord that has no clue about balancing tanks, or how the game works.

  16. I’m a little fuzzy about this comment here:

    >>Tiger P was nerfed, because it has on its tier 55 percent winrate<<

    So? Is WG trying to make WoT like NASCAR, where all the vehicles are the same, and the best driver wins? In case you didn't know, NASCAR is rife with cheating to gain an edge.

    Here is some news WG: Not all tanks in WW2 were equally good. There were many tanks that were no good, and some that were brilliant. If you are basing your decision on which tanks to buff/nerf solely on their WinRate, then WT:GF can't come soon enough…

    • The point is not to make all the tanks the same (because they weren’t) but to make their winrate the same. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but every T7 heavy is different yet they all have ~52% WR because each one has it’s better and worse points.
      T29 – insane turret, decentish hull, gun depression- shit everything else like side armor and DPM
      AMX M4 – good gun, good mobility, good DPM – no armour anywhere
      IS/IS-2 – decent armour and mobility, high alpha – no accuracy whatsoever, meh pen
      KV-3 – decent front and great side armour, high alpha – slow, even longer reload than IS
      Tiger I – decent mobility, insane gun pen and DPM – meh armour (still can sidescrape)
      Tiger P – excellent armour, same gun as tiger I – less DPM than tiger 1, slower, weakspots
      Black prince – excellent armour, good DPM and maneuverability – slow, lame alpha and pen
      As you see not two are the same (similar, perhaps), yet they should all be balanced so none of them overperforms with their good sides.

      • where is excellent armor on tiger p? you talk about the ufp which can be shot around anywhere and even a T5 will easily pen and a kv2 can hit its cupola from 600m cos its bigger than the lfp? generally u have to be an idiot to shoot the tiger p on that 2 thin frontplate when you can pen it anywhere else

        • You could probably fit about ten of the Tiger P’s cupolas within the two big 200mm plates. Stop talking bullshit – yes, of course the Tiger P has weakspots, and of course they are big. But the Tiger P’s “weakspots” are as strong as the fronts of most other T7 heavies.

          It’s not an amazing vehicle, but it’s super easy to just drive into things and do okay with, even for bad players. That’s why it did so well.

          • nope, it did so well because 4x more play Tiger H and 5x play IS cos everybody grind first for IS7 or E100. every noob play those 2 and only a few play Tiger P with its awful 1600 dpm. now it will be even less. the aim is to make it unplayable…

        • Angle behind a building or stone from a good side (so it hides cupola) – you can hold off two or three heavies or meds alone.

          Wopwop~ Played quite a few games like that. It’s really a tad bit too good (I’ll keep it after the nerf anyway, so I am free to say it~)

  17. Well, i pity my little hellcat but i recognize its opness and i’m ok with reballancing. The main thing i worry about though is 6tier companies ballance – because random ballance is not everything – and hellcat is the only counter to OP-1s (everything else in 6tier companies is just occasional background). Thus, i think general td camo nerf is enough and they should wait with further hellcat nerfing for kv-1s split. SS, can you please convey this message to kwg :) ?

    • I don’t think Hellcat is going to be hit by the camo nerf as much (not as much as, per say, Nashorn at least), but this certainly will disturb the TCs. Still, I think people will adapt, maybe they will start using stuff than can soak damage rather than dish it out – like VK3601H, perhaps.

      • People will adapt to anything. I’m not concerned as long as kv-1s gets hit at the same time.
        With pure camo nerf you have to decide if you stay passive or go dps. If you add rest of nerfs you can’t even go dps successfully, if your main opponent will stay with the same stats it is now.

        PS: i mean, give room to everyone. Would you rather take 8x vk36.01 or 8x kv-1s now?

  18. - apparently, unlike EU and US, RU server doesn’t have the “restore sold premium tanks” mechanism, it’s still being tested there

    EU has the same system as US server ? Or RU server can’t restore premium tank at all ?

  19. - Tiger P was nerfed, because it has on its tier 55 percent winrate. The argument that this is because skilled players play it is false, WG has the statistic of the skill of players playing a tank and Tiger P does not differ in it from other tanks. There are many other statistics Tiger P is too good in, not just winrate, that’s why it was nerfed

    Tiger P OP… you heard it! When a T5 light without goldammo can penetrate your front and set you on flames, then it means you are OP!! LEGIT!

    – Storm admits that balancing department did make mistakes in the past, such as the overbuffing of the Tiger, or “invisible Borsig”

    Overbuffing? Really? When did they do it? Before 0.6.5 (when i started WoT)? Because after that patch i’m pretty sure the Tigers sucked!

    – some player was whining that balancers don’t play their own game – Storm linked the account of one such balancer, he adds that all the balancers are like that – skilled players with high amount of battles

    10k games? mostly with russians and heavies? Then my statpadder account is a good reference for me to be a “balancer”!

      • typo… i use numeric pad.
        But stil. IS-3 is the most played on his account. Then comes TYPE 59!!!! and T110E5.

        He sure knows what is balance if he played 1/5th (combined) of his game as scout-TD-arty. (nah, those are fine, no balance problems there, you don’t need to investigate)

        Looking at the stats this looks like a pedobear account and not a “we play on this account to get information what is wrong with our game” account.

    • If you think you have the right to be such a dick and talk about balance with your stats, then he is more than qualified.

      • And who gave you the right to judge me for saying that he’s not a good balancer?
        BTW if you look at my stats you can see why am i playing mostly MS-1. (hint: it’s for fun and to get the “surviver”) (no big lags on battletier 1 btw)

    • “Overbuffing? Really? When did they do it? Before 0.6.5 (when i started WoT)? Because after that patch i’m pretty sure the Tigers sucked!”

      Last Tiger buff – the RoF buff was a bit too much, mainly. Going 6 => 6,5s is totally legit, IMO. The HP and other (mostly minor) nerfs are collateral, I guess.

  20. So Storm was annoyed by his customers being unhappy and complaining about his company’s product and customer service.

    How terrible.

    Another sign a company is on the downward trend. WT will eat their lunch sooner than you think. That Kursk map in WT:GF is freaking awesome.

  21. - developers already transformed the viewrange into a circle, right now they are testing the mechanism so it doesn’t create some sort of problems, it will not appear in 9.1 tho
    ____________________
    Why not put it on test server for players to test it too. Also, if it works and no major bugs were found why not put it in 9.1. It’s not like 9.0 brought us shit when it was supposed to bring us major changes. For how many patches they will just fix the shit they fucked up in the first place!?

    - some player was whining that balancers don’t play their own game – Storm linked the account of one such balancer, he adds that all the balancers are like that – skilled players with high amount of battles
    ____________________
    Ok, he is good player. Still he is the clear example of why shitlords like that shouldn’t be in charge of balancing tanks. For example in next patch TDs as a whole class are losing camo bonus after firing. And yet his top three TDs played are Hellcat, E4 and Foch155. First one broken camo and turret with good gun, latter two T10 shitlord TDs that never should even appear in the game. And bcs of broken TDs like that every other TD will suffer. Please say that shit to poor ARL V39 driver when he gets spotted every time he shoots, because fuckpubbies whined about invisible Foch155 shooting them. Please explain to poor Sturer Emil drivers how to play that TD after that camo bonus removal since it relies on being invisible and its gun is the only thing that makes it work. And then Storm wonders about shitstorms escalating when it comes to sensitive stuff like bufs/nerfs.

    • Storm never wonders about whines. He loves it! (remember arty nerf complains?)

    • “Why not put it on test server for players to test it too.”

      That’s like asking for them to put it on live. Devel => internal test => super test => public test => live. And even with that you have loads of bugs uncaught (see 9.0), what would happen if you skipped two or three phases… don’t even want to imagine it.

  22. high winrate of a vehicle by itself is not a reason to nerf it, it is a reason to check other statistics of the vehicle – damage, damage done to the tank, average XP, scouting, player skill percentage (SS: as in how many noobs/pros play that tank) atc.

    Let’s look on KV-1S:
    • player skill percentage — below average → no nerf needed
    • scouting — below average → no nerf needed
    • average XP — average → no nerf needed
    • damage done to the tank — above average due to high number of vehicles driven by noobs → no nerf needed
    • damage — above average → consider nerf
    Sure, completely balanced.

    regarding further nerf requests: [...] T57 doesn’t stand out in practically no statistic anywhere (it’s possible to do something about it, but it has low priority)

    Sure. Especially ability to low time of clip reload, low time unloading whole clip, high penetration etc. Completely balanced.

    KV-1S will be split into two vehicles, which will come in HD quality

    Let me guess: HD quality for KV-1S has low priority?

    Tiger P was nerfed, because it has on its tier 55 percent winrate.

    “High winrate of a vehicle by itself is not a reason to nerf it”. Sure, probably that’s why 55% winrate is the first reason for nerf.

    Storm admits that balancing department did make mistakes in the past, such as the overbuffing of the Tiger

    Tiger was soooooo overbuffed, probably killed all IX tiers with one shot. BTW, it’s quite interesting method how to nerf tank which is popular but was nerfed earlier:
    • Take balanced tank, like Tiger I.
    • Make tank inferior by giving it worse engines due to “historical correctness”.
    • Make tank balanced by buffing minor characteristics and give it 50 HP more.
    • Make tank inferior by removing 100 HP and nerfing several characteristics .

    At the end you have “balanced” tank with worse engines, worse characteristics and 50 HP less.

    some player was whining that balancers don’t play their own game – Storm linked the account of one such balancer, he adds that all the balancers are like that – skilled players with high amount of battles

    It doesn’t make them playing tanks which they are balancing. TBH, if I was balancer and was playing T57 Heavy, I would say this tank is pretty OK. Why to remove tank you are using on regular basis?

  23. About this “balance guy” – sorry, but this WR is too high for his skill. I see a great influence of platoons but his individual skill isn’t that good as we could imagine while looking at WoT profil.

  24. - Tiger P was nerfed, because it has on its tier 55 percent winrate. The argument that this is because skilled players play it is false, WG has the statistic of the skill of players playing a tank and Tiger P does not differ in it from other tanks. There are many other statistics Tiger P is too good in, not just winrate, that’s why it was nerfed
    - some player was whining that balancers don’t play their own game – Storm linked the account of one such balancer, he adds that all the balancers are like that – skilled players with high amount of battles

    well, if he thinks tiger p was op and needed even more nerf he is a noob

    its armor exists only on paper, its dpm is worse than a T6, its mobility is worse than a kv2/3… the only thing it has is its pen what you cant even use in peekaboo cos its crap mobility and th paperthin corners next to the so called 200mm armor

  25. ‘- apparently, unlike EU and US, RU server doesn’t have the “restore sold premium tanks” mechanism’

    Erm no we don’t. Only the US server has the ability to reclaim several premium tanks. EU just gets the EXACT same as the RU server, a 1 time only deal via an email to support.

    Please dont tell me EU will be forgotten about when this scheme rolls out on RU as well…

  26. it is rly hard to make t59h drum reload equal to amx 50 b? now 59 have faster damage per minute than t62a