Wargaming Inside Info – a Blast from the Past

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Hello everyone,

remember the guy with the Wargaming inside info (that got confirmed in time, for example the Freedom Bundle for Xbox)? He’s back. This time, he said he’d have to be more careful – the developers were not happy about some of the info being leaked and started purging the internal channels. So, we’ll have a look at some of the older stuff, that was planned and never got into the game, perhaps it will be illuminating for you guys. I will add some of my comments in the usual way.

Multi-turret and Multi-Gun Mechanism

Multiturret and multigun mechanisms have been alphatested several times already, the developers however are not convinced that the mechanism is of any use and should be developed further. Most of the secondary weapons are pretty much useless (such as the Maus gun) for their tiers, so it’s most likely the project was shelved completely due to the “what is the point of developing something that players will never use anyway” reason. One of the few exceptions would be the B1 hull gun.

This is how the reload mechanism was planned/tested by the developers: there is a button, switching between available guns/turrets, each has its own loading time, so for example by pressing the right key on M3 Lee, the GUI switches, it is noticeable because the camera switches a bit as well and centers over the active gun (for example it switches above the 37mm turret). The concept worked, but had following issues:

- poor gun performance: the extra guns are almost always worse than the original guns of the tank and in most cases would be completely useless, providing “extra annoyance” only to the target. It was also mentioned it would confuse the players, who would then either switch to the wrong gun because it was “firing faster” or would simply be confused by the concept of more guns itself. Additionally, the rapid fire guns could be abused for permatracking in some cases.

- gameplay: there are issues with the concept, such as “how would the aiming work”, “would the gun be pre-aimed when switching”, “what about spamming the switch between reloads” etc. – the developers specifically don’t want the game to become a DPM race á la World of Warcraft, where in order to maximize DPM, you have to mash a skill every second (SS: I can confirm that, maximizing the DPS patterns was sometimes really exhausting to the point the paladin had a mod that told you what skill to press next to maximize your DPM)

All this happened basically as early as 2012 and the feature was shelved ever since. There are some tanks on the developer list that are basically “frozen” because of waiting for this feature, such as the Soviet T-35, T-100 and the French pre-war heavy tanks. These will not appear in World of Tanks until (if at all) the mechanism gets implemented.

A few more bits of info

- the developers thought about adding or reworking a form of ST-I, called ST-II, that had twin guns, but then it was decided that the current ST-I works just fine and is balanced
- originally, the IS-4 was supposed to use its historical gun only, which was the D-25T, SerB wanted this gun firing gold ammo as silver and some even more advanced ammunition as gold along with better soft stats, but it didn’t work for tier 10
- at one point (SS: very long time ago), IS-7 was considered a mistake because the design was “too powerful”, the developers even considered replacing it, but in the end, the vehicle was too popular and so they did let it be
- however, developers are considering replacing tanks that are unhistorical and aren’t TOO popular (this is not the case of WT E-100, as it is very popular, but the FV4202 and FV215b (120) are prime candidates for this)
- British tank Archer (with a 17pdr) is intended for the second line of British TD’s or it might come as a premium, the tank is apparently supposed to be driven the was Crusader artillery is, it has “low priority”, but the Crusader SP “driving fast backwards” system was a success and so this tank is scheduled for implementation with it
- no BMP’s and flame tanks in WoT
- the Sturmtiger model is already done, but the developers for three reasons: “too big issues with balance”, “there are better things to implement” and “wait for its branch”
- Churchill AVRE could appear in World of Tanks as a part of an “assault branch”, but suffers the same fate as Sturmtiger (same reasons why it is not implemented)

(SS: this might require an explanation – some time ago, probably a year and half back, the developers were considering an entirely new class of vehicles – “heavy assault guns”. No new info appeared on that ever since, so it’s likely the idea was scrapped in the concept stage and kinda “took” the Sturmtiger and the Churchill AVRE with it)

- some developers want the Italians to have a separate tree, but they lack hightier tanks (SS: that is true, Czechoslovakia itself for example has more hightier stuff than Italy, Italian hightiers are extremely problematic, Italy can barely build a complete medium branch – and hightiers would be either some sort of Leopard models, or modified M47 Patton)
- developers considered at some point minibranches of Israeli, Brazilian and Argentine tanks, the idea was considered interesting but there was a lack of high tiers and the Israeli branch was considered “compromised by foreign designs” (SS: as in, full of copies)
- Japanese superheavy designs are still being researched, but there is very little data to go, WG might fill the branch gaps “as they see fit”

Oh yea and apparently, there will be a Alienware bonus code giveaway (bonus, not invite) soon

92 thoughts on “Wargaming Inside Info – a Blast from the Past”

  3. If we grinded the top tier British medium, would we get it as a free premium? This has happened before,with the T34 ,was it?

    • I sincerely hope so since not many players actually own FV4202. I think they considered giving out T34 as a mistake because many people owned it.

    • If it is going to happen, then I need to ‘get my skates on’. Still on the Comet.

      As they said in the past that they don’t want to do the T34 thing again. I’m expecting like for like replacement though with optional premium added later. Like PzIV-Schmallturm

    • Highly unlikely. WG stated before that they do not want to give away premiums like that any more. They would probably do it the way they did when they altered pz4 and introduced premium pz4 shmalturm on tier 6.

    • Nope. They said T34 case was mistake and they will not repeat it again. So they will replace both British X tiers with another tanks in the way they have replaced T-50-2 with MT-25.

      • I dont know if you can compare T-50-2 with FV202 since T-50-2 was way to “good”, While FV202 is kinda ” crap ” and its historical configation fits better as tier 8..But I also belive that FV202 will just disapear and get replaced with Cheiftain

        • 1., T-50-2 wasn’t “good”. It was “fun”.
          2., T34′s, T-50-2′s and FV202′s case are the same. “Replacing the tanks”.
          3., FITS BETTER AS A TIER 8??? Please give me some of your drugs dude.

          • Give it a 20-pdr, reworks the armor to make it weaker, nerf the soft stats a bit. There, you’ve got yourself a tier 8 MT

            • Soooooo… make it an “unhistorical” junk with the name of an existing one.
              Because that would be the move WG would like. Right?

              • Ummm…what Tauro just said makes it MORE realistic…the armor is totally bogus and it was only ever armed with the 20pdr in real life…

              • No its “unhistorical junk” right now. The changes Tauro just stated would make the tank a lot more historical.

                It’s sad to see people who can’t tell the difference between historical and unhistorical changes.

          • 3., FITS BETTER AS A TIER 8??? Please give me some of your drugs dude.

            Make FV4202 historical with original gun and armor and you’ll get good VIII tier tank.

    • Well, maybe they anounce it in some time, or maybe include a Mission about it, just think that WG could get a lot profit it hey announce FV4202 will be Tier VIII premium for free IF you grind to tier X in 2-3 months :)

  4. MTLS-1G14 has twin guns so the multi gun mechanism exist.

    P.S you wrote “Israli” at the end

    • It’s got 2 modeled barrels, but it’s still only 1 gun. The shells spawn from the same point and the guns fire and reload as one.

    • Your argument is flawed in many ways, first and foremost is because they are giving a lot of free things, as a celebration present or as a reward for completing quests.

      But more importantly, they don’t owe us anything, especially because quite a lot of us play this game for free, i.e. not paid a cent to buy premium. They are running a business, not a socialist government. In what way should they start giving out tier 8 premiums for free….oh, wait.

  6. They should just make the Sturmtiger and Church AVRE premium tanks; either a very short range but huge damage arty or a massively inaccurate TD/Tank with derp gun style gameplay.

    • The problem is the sheer alpha damage these tanks would have. If you give them short range or very bad accuracy it will be frustrating for the people who drive them and then, if they actually manage to hit anything (not even hit, splash would do. sturmtiger would have a good few dozens of meters splash radius if devs go for anything close to being historical) it would be very frustrating for the players on the receiving end.

      Also high alpha is the one of tank’s stat influencing battles the most (mobility and view range being the others). That’s simply how the game play evolved and how the current meta game looks like.

      That’s why people complain about tank destroyers and arty. If they hit, it hurts a lot and often one hit is enough to cripple the player’s tank for the duration of the battle (be it all critical damage or the fact that the tank has almost no hit points left and has to stay back all the time).

      On the other hand, if these two tanks won’t have their massive alpha and splash they are going to be just generic tanks no one would care to grind for (or pay for, if they are premiums). And that’s a bad business for WG.

      So the balance is the key and it is very tricky when it comes to high alpha damage tanks of any tier and class.

      • I’m afraid everyone wants it do be a direct-fire Conqueror Gun Carriage.

          • Yeah. “Dat” 380mm gun with less explosive power than the 165mm L9 Demolition gun, a maximum range of 80 meters, all while being mounted on the fast and manuverable Churchill chassis.

            People who want the Flying Dustbin in game don’t actually know what a dreadful implement it was. I’d sooner see an L9-equipped version since that actually would be a damn powerful gun on par with the 152mm the KV-2 gets.

            • You got it mixed up. Churchill avre had 290mm mortar. 380mm rocket mortar was on jagdtiger. And now, to compare them two, churchill avre was firing 14kg explosives packed in the warhead … and jagdtiger was firing HE rockers filled with 125kg of explosives. Also with a range up to 6 kilometres.

              So yeah, it is DAT 380mm gun. Compared to that about anything put on a land unit, maybe except rail guns, would be a fart in a hurricane.

  7. Italian branch should end with P-43bis on T7 and then switch from there to Swedish Emil afaiac.
    Maybe the autoloading Panther as T8 premium, but generally speaking the last thing I wanna see in WoT is shitloads of same looking tanks just because someone felt the urge to fill all them tiers for each nation. Filling gaps is fine, forcing it to T10 is meh. (I mean after war most of the remaining countries just bought stuff that’s already implemented in the game, maybe changed a gun or put in some fancy new seats, frankensteined hull and turret at best…. the last one I wouldn’t probably mind.)

  8. Confirming the 37mm IS NOT USEFUL AT T4 with the LEE.

    Retards…Of course it is. Also Maus slinging HE at Scout who is circling him might be useful.

    Sure some are not but a lot are useful.

    Also when they adding all these NPC modes and soon single player you bet your ass they will be useful.

    • Maus flinging 75mm HE shells at a scout would do *nothing*
      You see the pz3′s stubby gun? Yeah, try hitting a moving scout with it….with the rotation speed of a maus’ turret.
      You won’t. And if you do, you’ll do 20 damage.

      Working on a mechanism just to do 20 damage with a pointless gun once in a while? No thank you. That’s a waste of ressources.
      Same for the M3 Lee, why use the 37mm when the 75mm has better pen and reloads very fast anyways?
      The ONLY tanks that would currently benefit from it would be the B1 and Churchill Mk1.

      That’s a lot of work for two tanks.

      • Couldn’t they just give HEAT as basic ammo for Maus’ secondary gun? That and some crazy RoF and it could become useful against paper tanks.

      • In some situations the 37mm on Lee could be useful for example close combat when the enemy flanks you or you can also be able to flank other tanks.

      • Maus flinging 75mm HE shells at a scout would do *nothing*

        • Maus gun could be useful to destroy some buildings.
        • Char B1 could be much less shitty tank on VI tier games.
        • M3 Lee (and soon M3 Grant) could defend themselves against flanking III tiers which can kill Lee with ease now.

        • They gave up with the idea of switching between guns.
          Why not pressing a button that activates or desactivate secondary fire.
          Pressing fire button woud make fire all the weapons with a line of sigh firing.
          => problem solved

          • Yep, because is shitty currently. With additional gun it could be used in VI tier battles without much issues.

        • Implementing an entire mechanism so the Maus and E100 can destroy building, the M3 Lee can maybe defend against someone who flanked him, and the B1 can use a non-traversable howitzer is *a bit* counterproductive, considering the amounts of fixes, bug and graphical overhaul that are much more important…

          • With the introduction of multiturret gun’s there will also be a lot more balancing problems and A LOT more bugs.
            Just useless and stupid.

    • Maus’s 7.5cm L/36 (rifled to L/32 and firing L/24 ammo) can fire many types of shells. From AP, Special AP, HE, Several types of HEAT, and Smoke. The Special AP is PaK 40, iirc, shells fitted to the L/24 case… Things got a bit silly late in the war.

  9. “- at one point (SS: very long time ago), IS-7 was considered a mistake because the design was “too powerful”, the developers even considered replacing it, but in the end, the vehicle was too popular and so they did let it be”

    I cant read this shit anymore.

    The ingame turret IS-7 armor is overbuffed just like many other cast turrets in the game (remember the recent T-54 armor “fix”).

    The gun penetrated IRL 222 mm at 200m, not even close to the ingame 250 mm.

    With that pen and a historical turret you can give it its historical ROF, the tank wouldnt be OP at all.

    • tank pen is based on 100m range in WOT along with all the other gun stats. In addition the DPM is very low on the IS-7 already… It was OP when it came out as one of the 3 t-10′s, maus, IS-7, T-30. Not anymore.

  10. I always thought that the name “ST-I” were pronounced “es-tea-eye”. But if there’s an ST-II, then the”I” is a roman 1 number? Why did the Soviets used roman numbers? I’m confused :S

    • http://worldotanks.ru/uploads/images/00/00/02/2012/01/04/5d28fd.jpg

      Look at the top of the drawing. There’s tank name there in Russian alphabet.
      Now, if it was ST-1, you could see a number ” 1 ” there. If it was ” i “, you would see Russian ” и ”
      It seems then that the symbol is in fact Roman ” i “, standing for a number ” 1 “. I guess it’s like with Tiger 2 “tiger two”, being tagged as Tiger II, but no one pronounces it as “tiger eye eye”.

      • I understand the roman numbers, that’s not the problem. I just didn’t know that the Russians used this method too. I mean, for example their IS-4 is ИC-4 and not “ИC-IV”. I thoght they sticked to arab numbers when they named their tanks, and it’s a bit strange for me that they used the ST-I term instead of ST-1.
        But alright, its ST-I (one) and not ST-I (i) then :P

        • Maybe because it was a secondary “mark” of what kind of tank it supposed to be. Like… I stands for “this tank was meant to be in the frontline” II stands for “only a proposal, modification needed” and such.
          Just my theory.
          But it would make a good article. :)

        • Yes, it’s odd. I have no idea why would they use Roman numbers instead of Arabic in this case.

          Perhaps SS or one of other contributors would like to make an article about tank names and their numbers. Could be a good read. :)

          • It’s not exactly obvious that it’s a Roman numeral since the tanks directly before and after it use Arabic numerals in their names. Not to mention all the other Russian tanks that use Arabic numerals instead of Roman…

          • Yeah, nothing to do with the fact that a roman “1″ is written the same way as a capital “i” or anything.
            And that every other Russian tank uses arabic numerals.

            No.
            Obviously everyone is a retard, and there is 0 confusion.

        • or they have heard it is called ST – 1 but they are too stubborn to accept that is called that

      • The problem is, is that German tanks use roman numerals but Russian tanks usually do not.
        Even I read ST-I with an i at the end because it makes no sense to think that the Russian’s would use roman numerals randomly while they used arab numbers for every other tank they made.

        I suppose using logic can work against you sometimes…

  11. only reason WT E100 is so popular is its a OP retards/noobs tank. this will change quickley if they nerf it. than they can replace it ;)

    • Yup, it’s a shitty excuse. I’m not miffed about the FV4202 getting a replacement and being dropped to T8, as the historical FV4202 is T8 material, not T10. What miffs me though is, that they want to drop the FV215b, juat because it’s not driven by many people, while the tank itself is fine. Ahistoricity is no excuse, clearly (see WTE100 and other abominations in this game) and lack of popularity of that tank is no reason, as the lack of popularity isn’t necessarily the tank’s fault, but the fault of Churchill VII and Caernarvon (and possibly more of the vehicles in the line, but these two are the most common offenders) and even if most people don’t like it, there are still people out there who do like and care for the vehicle.

  12. Probably year ago when i had about 250 battles i was in may M3 Lee and i asked “do you know how can i switch to the gun on turret?” And they called me retard, idiot, noob and many other insults in that one battle. Well i dont thing it was actually my retardation that i saw turret and gun on it and i asked if it shoots… thats how newbie friendly wot is. Anyway 37mm gun on M3 Lee would be usable against arties or light tanks.

    • I’d still fire the 75 mm on it. The DPM on the 75 mm is high enough that really, you’d kill arties faster with it. As for light tanks, a fullly elited Lee is very difficult to flank, since it has 43 degree per second turn, it’d be wiser to turn the 75mm against the target than to try and rotate the turret to follow it.

  13. Hmm, if you could lock the auto-aim of the turret to one target and have the gun fire automatically, you would have an AT machine gun, giving you supressive fire and, potentially damage, while you are free to shoot with the big gun for more damage. Which would make Lee OP.

    But if you have to manually switch between the 2 guns, it would be as if you are having 6 types of ammm, and switching ammo when in the heat of dogfight can get frustrating and such system will require practice.

    In Hard Truck Apocalypse they solved multiturret problem by having all guns aiming at the same place and having guns grouped to certain trigger buttons for more control over when each gun shoots, but usually you would fire all of them (there where 5 groups). But they had unlimited ammo and there was no such thing as ricochet.

  14. Multiturret/gun mechanism could be balnced ifswitching to a gun would start the reload from scratch… Could also add a certain ammount of time between loading starts (crew switching stations to man the 2nd gun?).
    Besides… C’mon WG you could add secondary gun modules that would allow you to upgrade the secondary gun as well. AT 7 for example looks like it could mount 2 identical guns on either side.

    • Historically, it woulldn’t make much sense since tanks with 2 guns generally had 2 separate gunners, check the Lee and Churchill I, they both have 2 gunners. I think their argument is less about balance and rather more about complexity. Yes, you can make it complex, but will it add anything when it becomes more complex. Considering the secondary guns were shit, it wouldn’t add much and becomes a hassle if the player wanted to use it.

      • Secondary guns aren’t necessarily shit. B1 has a fucking 75mm Howitzer in the hull, a gun that works quite well on the tier. A 37mm fast firing turret-mounted gun on an M3 Lee would give the vehicle some (much needed) tactical flexibility, even though it probably can’t pen KV1s frontally, but that’s not the point or even a problem (see current B1′s main gun). And while the Churchill I’s hull mounted 3inch howitzer or the Chi Ri’s hull-mounted 37mm or the AT-series’ extra guns are neither of tactical value nor particularly powerful, they could add some flavour to stuff that is otherwise nothing but a weakspot in your armor. Perma-tracking being an issue? How terrible… Not like other tanks can’t do that already with just one gun…

        • There are also a fair number of tanks that are being considered or could be added that would probably rely quite heavily on multi-turret mechanisms. For example, the G1P, a French competitor to the Char G program that is sort of like the Lee – 75mm hull gun, and 47mm turret gun. Having the same armament as the Char B1 would run prone to the same mistakes, and the B1 currently isn’t regarded as being the best. A number of proposed French super heavy tanks at low tier would probably also benefit, although the highest tiered multi-turret tank – the FCM F1 – would probably find its 47mm gun useless as compared to the main 90mm.

  15. - British tank Archer (with a 17pdr) is intended for the second line of British TD’s or it might come as a premium, the tank is apparently supposed to be driven the was Crusader artillery is, it has “low priority”, but the Crusader SP “driving fast backwards” system was a success and so this tank is scheduled for implementation with it

    I was confused while reading this part … because I’m not English native.
    I think you mean “the way Crusader artillery is.” not was … am I right?

  16. >>Israeli branch was considered “compromised by foreign designs” (SS: as in, full of copies)

    Chinese branch says HI :) .
    At least Israelis made many interesting modifications, so tanks looking similar would play very different…

    • The Chinese branch has Chinese built tanks (Save for some of the mid teir and low teir), as apposed to an entire tree of existing in-game tanks with different modules.

  17. Don’t want to be a DPS race? “How terrible.” Also: WoW was never a DPS race with a proper raid-setup. Even ICC.
    Poor gun performance? “Use gold.” BTW Most of the current tanks have also a “permatracker” gun, so why is multiturret/multigun so wrong again?

    “Most of the secondary weapons are pretty much useless (such as the Maus gun) for their tiers, so it’s most likely the project was shelved completely due to the “what is the point of developing something that players will never use anyway” reason.”

    IDK but i have a suggestion about it. MAKE A GAMEMODE THAT BENEFITS FROM IT! Like… “Urban attack”. No enemy tank team, but you have to deal with “infantry” that hid itself in buildings. They pop out of a window, you have to shoot them or else you get hit. Like a “whack-a-mole” game. If you score enough points after the final wave you win. Like in ROTU mode in COD4 or the AI mode in TF2.

    “[...] some time ago, probably a year and half back, the developers were considering an entirely new class of vehicles – “heavy assault guns”. No new info appeared on that ever since, so it’s likely the idea was scrapped in the concept stage and kinda “took” the Sturmtiger and the Churchill AVRE with it[...]”
    - no BMP’s and flame tanks in WoT

    Yeah because an online game does not need any “new mechanic” to it after a while.
    *sarcasm off*
    This is the dumbest thing i have ever read in my life. WG MUST innovate the gameplay mechanics to keep the game “fresh”. And by “innovation” i don’t mean “new branches on the tree with the existing categories”.

      • I made suggestions and statements of beliefs.
        Learn the difference between whine and opinion young jedi.

    • The best way to keep it from becoming a DPS race is to pause or reset reloading while it’s not the active gun. The Lee’s 37mm gun is not a good gun at the tier but it’s hardly worthless; it’s good enough to actually allow the tank to circle an enemy, shoot back while retreating, etc, and there could probably be alternatives to cram into the turret that, while of questionable historical-ness, could make the 37mm gun more useful (Littlejohn adapter, for instance).

      Infantry in WoT: Depicting actual death in-game causes lots of problems when trying to sell the game in lots of countries and would force a reclassification of the game in many. And that would come with other problems. Any Player vs. Enemy game types will involve the player shooting at AI tanks.

      The Sturmtiger is an artillery piece, the Churchill AVRE is likely the one with the 390mm spigot mortar which would actually be completely useless ingame (The version with the Royal Ordnance L9 would be a KV-2 counterpart, though), flamethrowers are worthless against tanks (though some tanks with flamethrowers carried actual guns – like the real KV-6 which had a flamethrower and a 45mm gun). The BMP should be obvious – All its anti-tank ability comes from a missile.

  18. I wonder what heavy tank will replace the FV215b since there’s no prime candidate due the Conqueror being the last British heavy before they switched to MBTs starting with the Centurions onwards.

    • Well for the heavy a suited not being continued from Conqueror though but acting as heavy for WoT standars is one of the early proto’s of chieftain tank
      and for the medi leave the space open for the Action Centurion mk X and continue the family of the centurions which makes sence start with a centurion and finish with a centurion

      p.s the idea putting chieftain into the spot of the FV4202 is a waste of the tank imo

  20. ST-II = Mammoth Tank a la Red Alert. Fun times…

    Oh, and multi-gun would confuse players? I suppose that makes sense given how average humans barely count as sapient life in many cases…

    • I love the ST-I, I had a sort of glee when I heard that it might get twin barrels, even with the D-25T.

      The way I see how the multi-gun system might be confusing would be in the heat of the battle when you are trying to focus on staying alive, and in cases when there are more than two guns to switch between. Also I can imagine it being confusing if the camera suddenly changes where its looking, say when you switch between a Lee’s gun and a turret which was aiming to the rear.
      I do hope they do end up adding this mechanism.

    • I don’t see why it wouldn’t work; they made it work with the MTLS-G14. Just make it fire two shots per pull of the trigger and give it a slow reload to compensate for the burst damage (considering that these two shots combined would do 900 or more damage in about a second, which is comparable to the full damage output of a tier 10 TD’s HE shell upon penetration).

      • That would be so OP…I love my ST-I, and I will never sell it. ISU-152 shoots you, and you bounce his shot? Slap him to death with your twin 122mm boomstick of doom.

  21. “- developers considered at some point minibranches of Israeli, Brazilian and Argentine tanks, the idea was considered interesting but there was a lack of high tiers and the Israeli branch was considered “compromised by foreign designs” (SS: as in, full of copies)”

    *cough*CHINESE TANKS*cough*

    And about the “heavy assault gun” class..I suppose the reason it wasn’t added was because they’re redundant. Take any tank destroyer with a derp gun, such as the Hetzer, StuG III Ausf.B, SU-152, or hell, even the KV-2 from the Soviet heavy line, they’re all “assault guns”.

    Also, about some secondary guns being “useless”…let’s use the Maus’ for example, here’s what you could do with it:

    -Shoot off tracks of circling mediums
    -Kill Batchats or Leopards (or arty)

    Yeah, it would have a niche role, but it’s not useless.