Insider: Wargaming Thoughts on Arty

Hello everyone,

a lot of people think that Wargaming doesn’t realize problems and balance – but they do. Thanks to the “Insider”, who in the past provided us with reliable info, a copy of internal WG chain e-mail found its way to my mailbox. Here it is – I deleted the names of course as per request of the Insider, but I do know them and I confirmed they are legit.

There is a part where SerB is raging – in Russian. Some of the developers write in Russian as well, the translation however is not mine, it’s the Insider who translated it as such and I dare not correct it. The chain mail involves several mid- to low-tier developers and SerB and it concerns everyone’s favourite topic, artillery.

The first part of the mail conversation takes place many months ago around the time before the Great Arty Nerf (8.6 was it? Can’t remember). The chain mail structure was modified by me to resemble a conversation (I threw out the “re: re: re:” etc)

Developer 1 (RU): So, what are the Data feeds on the “Arty problem?
Developer 2 (RU): What arty problems?
Developer 3 (RU): Artywhiners.
Developer 4 (RU) posts some artillery statistics and copies of whine on forums
Developer 1 (RU): *reacting on Developer 4* Is this even correct?
Developer 5 (RU): Afraid so 95% players play arty, 14 clusters accounted in EU/US/RU most vocal ones are forum speakers estimated not even 5% of them are actually accounted for, most problematics come from the US cluster
Developer 5 (RU): *posts US server artillery statistics*
Developer 2 (RU): so, why are we even considering a nerf? since when this is a democracy?
Developer 6 (US): There are obviously some artillery that needs a remodel on their damage physics, SU-26 is taken for granted the French bagels too.. but all? Most artillery will become nearly unplayable unless we fix the Sigma, whats the word of kruta? (SS: kruta = Storm)
Developer 2 (RU) in English: *REMOVES BRAIN*

Several weeks later… Wargaming is working on artillery nerf

Developer 5 (RU): “Please send the supertesters 116 the new feed on the damage model, we estimated a 25% and upwards decrease on all artillery model damage, can it be confirmed?”
Developer 4 (RU): “Confirmed, playing Obj 212 makes onions cry, how is this even fun now?”

A few mails later, developers argue about the artillery nerf and wild SerB appears in what is allegedly one of his most famous tirades amongst the developers. The translation is the Insider’s, I left it as it is (the picture was a part of the e-mail apparently). Please pay attention to what SerB predicts.

Sergey Burkatovskiy *redacted*@wargaming.net

>>>Attention

>Remember this is a business Model, not a democracy, despite what players whine about over 90% of the database owns artillery at low to mid tiers and 83% owns an end-tier piece, this is contrary to the actual statistics of “arty sucks” and hear, these little krayfish dont even know what they want, all they want is win, win, win, and when they dont win they blame anything that can be accounted for, once we Nerf artillery, Tank Destroyers will come, they are blind and only see what they have the most immediate benefit of their wins, and then we will have a Tank Destroyer problem – too strong to be maintained in check! and the cycle will repeat, the new statistics are meant to define less damage per game as solution and it seems to be working. and noting else will be ever moved from now on unless a new model is approached. we must focus on what statistics form server tells not some Arty vocals, artillery is a piece of the game that is instrumental to our models, it will NEVER be removed and even if kraulf was to bring a second homecoming id rather make him drink piss.
>
>>
>Map wars statistics shows use of SPG just fine, the “pros” may whine on it on forums, but are held accountable for using it as well to maintain their map provinces. their logic is wicked. Numbers dont lie
>
>Start ignoring at your discretions, we ignore artillery talks form now on, focus on what the numbers tell us, they never lie, whenever the model increments from win ratio of 50.1 its candidate to review, and nothing else.
>
>The priority of the review is now on the low, some artillery will be an all time low winrate due the changes, review and fix so their roles adapt properly in line with the win ratio, dont move damage expectations per battle nor accuracy with the new model.
>
>>
>>>
>Where is my drink

19_200

And a reaction…

Developer 7 (RU): To all SoO designers, the new priority has shifted to increase localizations, WoT Blitz, WoWp, WoWs and WoT: generals are underway. Game balance should not be more than 6 people at once for the time being, Artillery is not a priority anytime anymore, inform the forum managers on clusters.

And now, months later, just a few months ago…

Developer 9 (RU): Called it, now Tank destroyers are the new “hot spot” for whine, plans?

Developer 1 (RU): sad, sad sad truth, we are waiting on the new data feed, the priority list is Hellcat, T49, T18, Tortoise, all waffentrager line, mind the new 1.18 camouflage remodels, its a work in progress, we may break something, i dont advise applying anything related to camouflage until new physics model arrives in 9.5.
Whine never changes, called it, now we fix the mess, but artillery wont be buffed, the numbers are being maintained, prodding with artillery wont be even looked out for, look for alternatives
Note: FV304 is candidate for review, win ratio exceeds 52% global perhaps the only one of the SPG lines the new target win rate is 49% global as usual.

Developer 8 (RU): People still complaining about arty? you have to be a masochist to play it already, or have a really dumb moment on the open to get hit by one, but i agree on the FV

Developer 10 (presumably US): USA calls it “skycancer” this days

Developer 5 (RU): Its the same with some Europeans against Poland, its disgusting to hear immature playerbase, and will be ignored rightly so, PR already received complains and have handed permanent bans to vocal players in battle chats — most offenders are from UK/Germany/Czech based on report counts, least comes from Italy and Poland — 2 death treats handed to authorities, both from Czech Republic. And please refrain from talking related to cancer, *redacted* wife was recently diagnosed with cancer and is undertaking medical care, some players dont even know what they want and talk out of their… butt, and toss tantrums because you know.. “internet”

Developer 11 (US): Usually banned/disgruntled players are thriving in a forum called wotlabs.net, players that dislike arty/TDs are led by a banned player on the forums.

Anyways, sorry to interrupt but i have a major problem with the phyton files and *redacted* is on break again (hes now in Poland on business trip to set up the new localization team), is there going to be changes of the tanks names? the phyton refers a few tanks with different names as usual and i already got mails from Chicago team saying they have no idea.

Developer 10 (presumably US): Sorry for the cancer remark, will refrain from now on, however now players complain about “invisible TD tanks”, it is to assume this is an aftereffect of the artillery demotion?

Developer 1 (RU): I ve corrected the phyton files, should be reflected on your Sisulizer localization program now :) Yes its an aftereffect as expected, Tank Destroyer players have increased by 40% in data feeds however their win ratios are maintained, its not a problem for now, Kruta and Grom are maintaining a look at it.

New priority is in: light tanks must be remodeled to increase “likeability”, as it stands they are poor performers and unwanted, only increasing players leaning towards medium tanks and Tank destroyers, however if we overbuff it will cause dispairing, A new model is being researched.

Developer 12 (EU): RIP Arty, leave it alone already! if they get hit its their fault, despite how much they deny it, no win ratio can be maintained above 50% by playing pure artillery unlike any other tank and no player exists like that despite claims.

So what do you think? Well, SerB called it and it happened, the dominance of TD’s that led to another round of nerfs. The moral of the story is: Wargaming people know what they are doing. Usually.

371 thoughts on “Insider: Wargaming Thoughts on Arty

      • We all know how good a player we are…. when you get a tank and you really enjoy it because you seem to be doing really well in it for a change and you notice your Wr is like over 55% when it’s usually about 50 ish you tell yourself you are now a good player, hmm, really you have a tank that is OP and the NERF bat is coming.

        1. My first Arty love was the SU26, yup was Op and go nerfed into Oblivion
        2. next came VK3601H, yup I wasnt suddenly a good player, the tank was OP, it got Nerfed

        What tanks am I doing well in at the moment…. Hmm E75 is my current favourite, nerf incoming?

        JagdPanther 2… hmmm, now i have the best gun my performance has improved massively, to me that means its probably got a nerf bat incoming…

        Problem is we are human we like to win and winning 49% of battles is not enough for me, if I cant have a Wr of 53% and greater i don’t want to play a game, I don’t want to play something that i play as well as everyone, I want to be a winner for a change and computer games are one of the few things I do quite well, sad isn’t it!

    • I once found some nasty rage e-mail in our production leaders folder XD
      Hint: dont leave your emails in a PUBLIC folder ;)

    • My respect for Serby continues to grow. I remember when arty was a real threat, the hummel owned low tiers and u constantly had to shuffle to stay alive an keep an attack moving. “leapfrogging”……

      Then the TD whine came, omg, I was so disgusted by my fellow tankers. Of course, when ur 14 and all u want is the 15 yr olds w/ better xvms to like u, im not surprised, lol.

      The same players who whined the 155 to death, now run around saying its junk.

      Well done.

      07 Serby.

  1. Stronk Drama :D

    And Told yach, the problem start from Arty over-nerf. Yes it is OP as hell before 8.6, but the beating it receive is so massive that it create the TD problem. And now I presume next victim will be Heavies……

    • ehh, no. Arty players flocked to TDs after 8.6, but that doesn’t mean the TD as a class is OP after arty nerf.
      Then came map changes that favors armor, T10 TD nerfs and TD camo nerf(albeit a very slight one). So much for TD problems (as a class, some like waffles and hellcats have always been OP and needed nerf anyways)

      • Honestly I don’t think the Hellcat is OP. However my opinion may be biased as I have a 60%+ WR with it. I feel likes its ‘OPness’ comes from its gun. It’s 90mm does the same damage as a tier 8 90mm. It isn’t like the Dicker Max 105 that does 300 compared to a tier 9 105 doing 390, and likewise the KV-1S’ 122 has a reduced damage due to tiering. WG seems to think nerfing the Hellcats mobility will make it “balanced” but that just isn’t it. In real life, yes I am using the “IRL” argument, the GMC M18 ‘Hellcat’ survived on its mobility, it was the fastest tracked vehicle of WWII. The camo I feel is balanced as I can easily get spotted a majority of the time after firing. Thus needing to relocate, but can’t effectively due to the sluggishness caused by the mobility nerf. Remember the thing has literally ZERO armor, it was only ever enough to block smalls fire and shrapnel. It only takes 2-3 shots from most tier 5 HE shells to kill it, 4 it you’re unlucky. The Hellcat NEEDS its mobility to be effective, the way WG should go about nerfing it focusing on the gun. As I said other mid tier tanks with large caliber guns have a damage reduction compared to their higher tier counterparts, I feel this is a viable option for balancing the Hellcat, reducing the average damage from 240, which is the same average damage the Pershing’s 90mm does, to 200. This would keep it from killing tier 5 mediums in 2 shots and tier 5 heavies in 3 shots. But I don’t think removing the 90mm from the tank would be viable as it does see tier 8′s and needs the penetration it offers to be effective. However if they did remove the 90mm the 76mm they replaced it with better be historical, for example the Hellcat’s 76mm could penetrate the Tiger’s frontal armor from any combat range, and the Panther’s at “suicidally” close ranges, so flanking them was much easier, because of the mobility, witch the Hellcat currently doesn’t have.

        • Totally agree, almost. The hellkittys are nicely done imo. I remember when the kttys had mobility, it was worse then a pack of 59s at their tiers.

          I really whish I could more damage out of the Panthers. 135 is do able but its just to much like working. I don’t have any fun with them in Pubs.

          Now the Kv85 is getting a buff. I know most of u think its a nerf, but that 100m is gonna be nasty in a pack, wait an see.

        • You forget that ingame hellcat can mount a m36 turret which has some armor.

          It also has fastest aiming speed…etc. to abuse hulldown without too long of exposure to enemy fire.

          That isn’t op?

        • It´s the same crap as with KV1S. First I play other tanks, slice through hellcats and KV1Ses like butter, but then I get to play those tanks after a long while and I cause 2000+ dmg and 5 kills in first game after 3 months, shouting “OMG NURF **** ” in agony.
          Remember mate, notification is the first step to open mindedness.
          If your all time WR equals 60% or more, then You can forget what I said above.

    • Mediums already beat heavies in general combat. Meds are only keept in their place by camping td’s now. A heavy tank can bounce and handle a TD, a med cant. If they nerf TD’s now the medium tanks will totaly whipe the floor with everything

      • Eh the only heavy tanks that can really “bounce” high tier tds (maybe) are the german and russian ones. US, British, and French heavies might as well be mediums when it comes to armor unless they’re super hull down (and even then cupolas are usually a weak point.) It’s why mediums are the hot shit for “good” players because when you realize armor basically doesn’t matter on 98% of tanks you’d rather have speed than nothing at all.

        • Yea totally. British heavy tanks have such little armor. Black prince, Churchill, Churchill 7 all have shit armor that is totally worse than all their Russian and German counterparts. Tiger1, VK3001H and VK3601H all have way more armor than the British Heavies. IS, KV-1S, IS-3 and IS-8 have such amazing armor. Way better than American counterparts which can’t bounce shit with their 275mm turret.

          Also if speed was such a fantastic thing than wouldn’t all the “good” players flock around Light tanks?

          Try to think a little before you type.

          • So I specifically refer to higher tiers, pretty obviously 9/10, and make the exception for going hull down and you ignore it? Yeah I think you’re the retard here buddy :) Tiers 5-7 are completely different (british clearly have a complete philosophy change going from BP to Caern, T29 is king of tier 7 but that’s about the only spot America has top armor tho T32 is okay at tier.) The IS-8 is admittedly kind of shit but then you look at the other german/russian 9/10 heavies and their overall armor is way better than the other nations.

            PS A bunch of the good players are really looking forward to some of the new lights like the Walker Bulldog, but lights won’t go above tier 8 atm so it’s kind of null as most of them play Tier 10 usually.

            Go fuck yourself friend :)

          • Think twice, lights have different MM. So its the meds who “rule”. In my opinion it really doesn’t matter about the tank, its more the players that play them that do the ass-kicking that we get whining about.

        • Don’t know what planet u play on, but my E5 bounces for days. If u can that hatch, hes WAY to close.

      • No, if they nerf TDs, then autoloaders will be the problem and after that meds. I propose to buff artillery

    • But it’s not because arty can no longer kill TDs reliably… it’s because the 5-6 cretins that used to be in arty each team switched to the next easiest/campiest thing.

      I’m just sad that none of them feel arty was a mistake in the first place.

      • Correct.. Players are used to play what is easy to play and gives your big damage numbers..
        Thats not a wot phenomenon.

        TDs are fine now, after last nerf (camo nerf after shooting)

    • The only TD problem is too high alpha/clip burst, really. The only reason so many players have gravitated towards TDs is because their old easymode boomsticks got nerfed.

      I really don’t see why these (bad) players complain about mediums, why is it wrong that the vehicle that requires the most skill to play well has the highest potential? If everything with a higher skill ceiling gets nerfed into oblivion they might as well remove all the vehicles and let us all drive around in T28s. Online PVP games will NEVER work when skill communism is enforced by the developers. When how well you play stops mattering, there is no longer any reason to play the game for anybody except those who would enjoy themselves just as much in PVE.

      • The only problems with TDs is that their numbers soared 40%(!) and that nearly all of the T10 TDs are massively OP.

        • Some of them are really stupid, the worst one is definitely fv183, f155 and wte100 are really badly designed too, and jpe100 has too much alpha. I don’t mind the rest, really. TD numbers sometimes get too high, a simple cap would suffice. The problem really is that the nubs want their no-brainer vehicles, and after arty got nerfed lots of them got into playing TDs, because it’s the next-best thing for them. When you get off 1-2 shots a game you want those shots to count for as much as possible, so they play the tanks with highest alpha damage.

    • How did it create TD problem exactly? You mean that camping cowards just moved from arty to TDs to stay back again?

      TDs started to be problem only when T10 TDs came. Nobody has problem with lower tier TDs as they are balanced (mostly have way less HP in their tier). I dont see how this is connected with arty being nerfed. People just tend to play what is easiest to play at given moment, so basically what is OP.
      And yes. TDs are still OP now, otherwise T10 battles wouldnt be filled by them so much. Recent nerfes helped a bit but still brutal alpa dmg, stronk armor, high DPM and same HP like heavies make T10 TDs easiest to play for average and bad players -> OP.

  2. To make something clear:
    Great Arty Nerf (8.6) —- no nerf.. a rebalancing, so that a brainless monkey is not able to play succcesfully.
    Arty should changed further more!
    - massive reduce of splash damage
    - improve accuracy on good aimed (clean aim-circle shots), so shot will be more reliable

    • We already had that, that’s why people were complaining: an arty that almost never misses.

      (Ahhh, I miss my old Hummel, when it was tier 5 and I was hitting moving tanks from a kilometer. :( )

    • Arty should get massive buff of splash (2x-2,5x) at same accuracy. The problem with arty is that shells land everywhere, and dealing some splash damage every 2 minutes is just not worth playing it. Arty should be used to dig out enemies in cover other tanks cant handle, so make it able to do that.

        • That’s bad RNG for you. Play arty for a while, you’ll understand what Developer 8 (RU) means by, “People still complaining about arty? you have to be a masochist to play it already, or have a really dumb moment on the open to get hit by one”

          • Nobody is saying artillery is good. The problem is that it plays by completely different rules than the other classes. Artillery does not require line of sight(can shoot over obstacles) nor does it respect the draw distance limitations that the other vehicles do, effectively letting arty shoot at any player for the duration of the battle with complete impunity. The only things that limit the damage potential of artillery are it’s reload and accuracy/aim time.
            Artillery is something that happens to you, something you can’t do anything about except hide from it, and that’s bad game design because it does not promote player interactions, it makes tanks hide and wait for the enemy because being active on the map means you get spotted and the consequently nuked. It might as well be called a low orbit ion cannon, for all you can do about it.

      • SPGs were accurate, they used grids and coordinates to land their shots. This required some planning however. After reading an autobiography of a soldier during WWII, he explained how they would set up different grids and coordinates with the arty crews, someone would call a strike on a sector, a few shots were fired for ranging, then once the accuracy and location were confirmed, hell let loose. Even some TDs were used as arty, Hellcats and Wolverines would hide behind a terrain feature, and using grids and coordinates rain down hell. But Arty doesn’t have this luxury because they don’t have lots of them all firing at the same time. To compensate I feel arty should get a higher chance of the shell landing in the middle of the aim circle when fully aimed. It really is your own fault if you get nuked by arty, you don’t even need to be good to avoid it, just be aware and stay arty safe.

        • Yea, they were accurate in the grid, but that grid was almost as large as a WoT map. No way was it accurate as to land a shot on top of a tank.

          If they wanted to mimic real life artillery I think they should give it a large (massive) fully closed reticle, and massive splash radius. More splash damage (and damaged modules) and much less direct hits.

          • Most artillery in the game are firing at 1/10th of their maximum range. I would think that, given a perfect observer (because in real life tanks don’t get highlighted through a radio), you really can’t complain about exceptional accuracy when you’re being given perfect enemy coordinates and a ridiculous lack of factors affecting gunnery. The only place I can think of that has a big problem with hitting fast moving targets on the move would have been my ELC always getting nailed at tier 5 and 6. Even then, I noticed plenty of shells would regularly miss.

            If the artillerist is good, he should be rewarded by making good shots. It’s actually pretty difficult to deal with 1000 meter moving shots – having 3+ second lead time introduces an incredible amount of error.

      • and dealing some splash damage every 2 minutes is just not worth playing it.
        ________________________
        Then don’t play it you cancerous cocksucker. There are plenty of other tanks that actually have to move around the battlefield to shoot at targets instead of sitting like a turd and lobbing shells across the map.

          • HAHAHAHAH oh some random God knows who pubbie implying i’m crying whereas i’m just pointing out the facts like the fact that he’s a cancerous cocksucker like any other arty player.

            • Oh you are so funny Medjed, and i like your use of the word random, lol. Just continue to cry, it makes me laugh:)

              • Well i just saw for the first time your nickname here, so you are random to me. But you managed to get my attention with your stupidity today :D

                • Perhaps you wouldn’t have such a shitty reputation if you actually decided to “back up” your points?

                  Sorry I might be asking too much from you.

                • “if you actually decided to “back up” your points?”
                  What about this:
                  “sitting like a turd and lobbing shells across the map”?

                  That is a fact, and the whole reason why it’s such a terrible fucking design. If you really can’t see what’s wrong with it, seek out professional help.

        • You might not agree, but calling him “cancerous cocksucker”? Way too far…

          I believe that arty needed nerf, but this “great arty nerf” was
          1) too strong
          2) completely wrong way – I would be really OK to play small unit (for example 3) of Hummels in tier 10 battle. Aim somewhere and act like cluster bomb. Few “small” shells land in area and cause Some kind of support dmg – minor dmg, detracks, module dmg, crew killed etc. Hell they could even introduce new mechanic for artillery HEs – crew stunned –
          Crew member is unable to do his task for a limited time. After for example 20s, he would be okay and all his stats would be back.

          Well… This is bit longer than expected and hopefully not very chaotic :)

          • But that would be really crazy. How does a Hummel rapid fire? Those shells are huge. That’s only the beginning of whats wrong with what you proposed…

      • I think the biggest nerf done to a tank(not the whole class) by wg is what they done to the IS-7,KV IS-4 Obj268 and T-54(this is still good tho)

        Missed the IS-4 on t9. I cry every time ;(

      • Dat arc negated low alpha, because it hits engine deck and pen too often. Fix that (either pen or arc) and it would be good.

        • yeah and you forget to mention something:
          it has dam short range and huge flight time. besides if you end up in T7 or T8 battles you dont do that much damage

      • “It’s WR is too high”

        Yeah, because people actually used it intelligently… You know, moving to get a better shot, aiming at weak points….

        But seriously, it was mostly people bitching about it’s permatracking abilities. Which, you know, could be negated by using a crew higher than 75%.

        I love my Bert. And the number of times I actually did more than 50-150 damage a shot (every 10 seconds) was not all that common.

  3. I called the same. Everyone with just a hint of brain knew that once arty is nerfed the TD’s will dominate. I always said it and got banned on the forums for it in the end. Now they got what they wanted from all their whine. Even more buttwhipping.

    Bring back old arty !

    • Uhh, no. Arty does not counter TD, because you do not counter passive play by even more passive play.
      And remember these times when a med at full speed got 1-hit by arty.

      • Uhm yes, they do counter TD’s. A hull down T10 TD can pretty much keep off an entire team alone. The only way to dig that out is to flank or to well .. blast it out of his position with arty. First one is not easy, second one a lot more.

        I remember that too, happened to me like 3-4 times in 30k games. I also managed to hit around 10 moving enemies in like 5k arty games played. Absolutely neglectable in general gameplay. Happened and happens so rarely its not even worth mentioning

        • “The only way to dig that out is to flank or”

          Wow flanking in a tanks game? Imagine that.

          Instead of being able to efficiently flank on most maps, it’s corridors. Why are there so many corridors that prevent flanking? Because of arty cancer. The flanking positions are typically not 100% arty safe, ergo, shitty campfests that punish aggression and skill. This is why the devs that claim arty only hurts people “in the open” are obviously bad at their own game.

          I could give a rat’s ass about fighting an entire team of tier 10 TDs in my medium IF it isn’t a shit map, made shit because of broken arty.

          • They don’t punish aggression and skill, they promote team play. You need to use the assets of the team. If i can’t get through somewhere and see we got an arty in the team that can hit him, i call in arty support and attack once the enemy is in a hurry to take cover from the next shot. You are right about corridors, but those corridors are not THAT bad. With a functioning team everything can be taken.

            • You must be new here kid, “functioning team” in WoT is fiction. You only get it in CW or TC, and arty can still do its job in CW, as it’s used with skill.

          • “Instead of being able to efficiently flank on most maps, it’s corridors. Why are there so many corridors that prevent flanking? Because of arty cancer.”

            This doesn’t even make the slightest bit of sense.

      • Exactly part of the problem is people not prioritizing targets, for example, I was on ruinberg with the T-34-85 in a tier 8 game hull down spotting the field, literally right next to me was a T34. Then all of a sudden I get nuked by an M12. Yes the M12 would rather shoot a bottom tier medium instead of shooting a top tier heavy. This happens a lot too as arty goes for what they think are the easy “soft” targets instead of killing something with armor and doing their job.

        • And exactly this is the point of nerfing “one shoting capability of arty”. As a support unit they deal way too much damage and for he most part they are to much RNG dependent. There is not much player skill involved for playing “whack’a’mole”, while on the other hand player is actually required to have 200% crew to at least partially negate the already atrocious RNG.
          -
          It affect arty soo much that in many cases “one shoting” is a direct consequence of that stupid RNG and not skill. Getting a direct hit on a weakspot on your tank while moving around (in irregular fashion) is just pure garbage and as that pretty much means you will lose 80% of your HP or even getting destroyed. from full hp!
          -
          Sometime it is even more disgusting. Getting a direct hit the moment six sense light up is even infuriating. How is that even possible, when I am moving anyway?
          -
          In the long run. SPG deal way to much damage as a support unit. Lower its damage, increase RoF and increase splash.

    • HELL YEAH i want my old faithfull T92, M12 and GWP back <3
      i dont understand why an arty limit to 2 or 3 was not good enough…

    • There is no such thing as TD dominace.
      “Tank Destroyer players have increased by 40% in data feeds however their win ratios are maintained, its not a problem for now”. Tell me which words you failed to understand and I’ll try to explain them in very easy language. :)
      Sure, some TDs are kinda OP but so are some HTs and Meds.

      Also the current meta-shift (especially map changes) favoures Meds and HTs A LOT.

      While still having many flaws, arty is okay-ish at the moment, though.

      • Seems like you didnt understand it yourself. TD players increased by 40%, but their win rates remain the same. That doesn’t not mean td’s magically got buffed in performance, they are just a much better option to play now, hence they get more popular.

        Very simple.

          • Wtf is wrong with you? If it was suddenly OP, the WR would increase.
            The 46% tomato will do 48% and the 62% unicum wuold get a 64% WR.
            Can you see a pattern there? The increased amount of arty MUST have another reason than the whole class being OP.

            Very simple.

      • Depends on your definition of “dominance”.

        The point is, with a 40% increase in the number of TDs in random battles, clearly that class of vehicle IS dominating random battles in terms of the numbers of each type of class represented. The fact that MM tends (with the occasional but very obvious failure) to balance the the types of vehicle on each team explains why there WR hasn’t really changed – because the increased numbers of TDs are (usually) split roughly evenly over both teams.

        What I think is most interesting about a 40% increase in TD numbers is exactly when and why that has happened. I can think of 2 things. 1) arty probably DOES\DID discourage camping – nerfing arty reduced both its numbers and effectiveness which in turn made TDs (vehicles which traditionally play a more static game) more easy to play and 2) some of the newer TD lines (we all know which ones) are, rightly or wrongly, perceived as being massively OP and therefore became more popular at the same time.

        Good to see the devs actually call it pretty accurately – it’s reassuring to see that they do really understand the intricacies of the balance of the game. Also interesting to see that, no matter how much the player base moan about something, actually most of the player base do use arty.

        • Why more TDs, because there are more shit maps that funnel people into chokepoints where TDs do best.

          A chokepoint in WoT is two things at once: a funnel, and arty cover — perfect for TDs.

          Remove arty, thereby removing the need for shit chokepoint maps, thereby making an entire team of tier 10 TDs not op to a team of anything else that can actually take advantage of mobility and positioning – wow like a proper tanks game.

        • the fact that someone has artillery in his garage doesn’t mean he love or even use it often. i myself have arties in my garage but i hate arty and i’d prefer if it was removed all together, so the fact that people have arty in their garage mean shit imo

    • people hate waffles and arty because they take no skill to play plus they reward bad gameplay which does not contribute to winning more thus they have lower winrates than all the other the other tanks in the game and at the same time they punish good players/gameplay.

  4. Nice post about arty! Sometimes I believe it’s been forgotten for all the care that they lack nowadays.

    It is also sad to see that WG took the marketing approach to the arty situation. By that, I mean that it would be better to make a way for “whiners” to learn from their mistakes and how to deal with the situation instead of taking drastic measures.

    Drastic by the fact that we may face any player that plays primarily a specific type of tank (TD by the statistics above), but we must be lucky enough to find a hardcore artillery player as the time goes by.

    I don’t want to get into specific mechanics or advantages of arty. I just want to say that I came to WoT mainly because I liked artillery and now I can’t have the same fun with artillery compared to the other classes.

  5. Thanks for this info SS, I think I am agree with most of the remarks seen here. Especially : Numbers don’t lie, and most of the time when there’s a “huge” whining wave, it’s led by a very small-yet-vocal part of the community. Some later joining the whine bandwagon but the rest of the playerbase usually simply don’t care. There are not even that many players who frequently visit forums, right?

    I think they indeed know what they are doing, however I still think that they purposely left some tanks imbalanced (probably for free exp trap?), or probably there’s just too many much works needed in balancing just one tank. Also, do they still care about Frenchies and China tanks?

  6. arty kills tds, tds kills heavys, heavys kill meds, and meds/lights flank trying to not beeing seen.

    if u delete artys, tds lose the natural enemy … nature law.

    • Actually… paper TDs soon lose their natural “habitat” – all these new urban maps, and the reworking of current maps to “tunnels” simply kill them… They can’t hide, they can’t snipe… (soon we can’t shoot for more than 200-300 m) only heavily armored/armed T10 ones can survive. (the ones what cause the most whine)

      So heavies rise up again (brutal T10 TDs don’t really care – they are fine with it)… just what “everyone” wanted…

      With such map-designs I simply don’t know what do they want with lights…

      • What you are losing with the new maps is the long range killing capability. In the new maps high tier TDs cannot kill from one corner of the map to another, now they have to get closer to make the same kills and thus are subject to return fire, while before they were effectively out of range from their victims.

        TDs can be used but now they must get closer to their victims. Also TDs are increasingly being used as assault guns and in this role the turret less ones win since they usually have very thick and/or insanely sloped frontal armor.

        • Can you name some mid (5-6-7) tier turretless, very thick armored TD? What can fight effectively at relatively close range (200-300m)?

          Most of mid tier TDs have lower HP compared to heavies and meds, they don’t have good armor at all… And since they can’t find proper spots to hide and snipe – they will fail, even in their own tier (let alone +2 tier battles)

    • No, that is just not true.
      HTs kill Meds, Meds kill TDs and TDs kill HTs.
      Arty kills all of the above and gets counterd by Lights (and arty and Meds to some extent)

    • Nope. WoT balance is not based on plain “rock-paper-scissors” rule, it’s more about making correct use of your tank, playing to it’s strengths etc.
      So no, arty was never meant to be a direct counter to TDs, as TDs are not more vulnerable in any point to it – they don’t receive “50% more damage from arty shells” or something like that… This is a common myth but a TD is not an easier target than a heavy or medium. And arty often hits first spotted/ closest tank , in other words (regarding TDs camping bushes at range) – not TDs are shot most of the time. Heavies leading an assault or mediums trying to flank are more common targets.

      But the truth is – after arty nerf more people are playing TDs. Not because they were vulnerable, just because they are second easiest way to deliver lots of damage with minimal effort. So called “easy mode” or “casual play”. And TDs became OP before arty nerf, in 7.5 when tier 10 meds and TDs were introduced – matchmaking was reduced and changed – since then TDs could play as top tier more often (for some tiers it was impossible at all to be a top tank in battle) and their guns were often overkill.

      The whole concept of arty as “primary firepower of the team” (as loading screen hint says) is just broken. Arty should be long range SUPPORT, not main damage dealer of the game – if not tanks are only arty food. Is there any other class that has fixed maximum number per battle and has to be equal in both teams?

      • only people who complain about TDs that are not waffles are bad players. it seems like wargaming does not get that.

    • How is arty a counter to TDs which have an abundance of cover and chokepoints to abuse on so many maps? I guarantee you are bad at this game and just conjured up without experience or stole that reasoning from another baddie.

  7. the arty was never that OP as the noobs think again…

    All WG had to do about it was limit the arty to 2 per team (exept for CW or TC).
    The whining noobs just had to learn to play….

    The best example is a JT who blaimed me for being a noob arty, while he was standing in the middle of an open field…
    who is the noob there?

    By nerfing arty, WG ruined a lot of fun in the game

    • Arty was OP and I have no doubt about it. Now I’m having more fun than ever playing it – it’s too hard for donkeys to make profit on them, so in most battles I’m the only one, or one of two playing it (per side).

    • Arty is not OP, it’s broken.
      Also, do you really think all arty-whiners are sub 47% WR players? I actually think the better the player, the more likely an anti-arty attitude becomes.

      “By nerfing arty, WG ruined a lot of fun in the game” – I remember complaints that the game will be less fun when +-2MM was introduced, because Type59s couldn’t farm KV-1s any more. I doubt they were right and I doubt you’re right.

      • “Also, do you really think all arty-whiners are sub 47% WR players? I actually think the better the player, the more likely an anti-arty attitude becomes.”

        Yeah, he whines on forums and then goes to CWs to defend open map in his T10 arty.

        • He would be stupid if he didn’t, because it works. But just because it works doesn’t mean that it makes the game more fun.

      • “Also, do you really think all arty-whiners are sub 47% WR players? I actually think the better the player, the more likely an anti-arty attitude becomes.”

        No no. The more obsessed with their XVM, the more strident they are. Those guys are the ones with insecurities, usnig any trick at hand to keep being on the best possible tank etc… I had one come to my face saying that it wans’t fair to be shot by arty when one do a mistake. That the punishment was too harsh, and on.

  8. Always been against arty nerf or removing it from the game. However good players don’t like to be one-shotted by a bad players and cried on forums which is mostly avoided by bad players. So in the end their whines is more likely to be heard.
    What makes some people play good also make them being unable to judge things on neutral ground and to predict outcomes of changes in game mechanics.

    • “However good players don’t like to be one-shotted by a bad players and cried on forums”

      heavy sitting on open field for 3 minutes is not a good player. He deserves death.
      TD camping 5 minutes in one place deserves the same. Good player will relocate after few shots. Hitting something with arty is not so easy.
      The reload time is pain. And if you miss.. well try again in 1 minute…

      The problem is, players ignore the fact that arty is shooting at them until it hits and then they cry. They dont run for cover when first shot misses, they sit there like stupid ducks and then cry..

      Happened to me the other day.. I’ve literally missed 3 shot in S-51 against JT and 4th shot (4 minutes later) one-shot him. And he started raging….

      First shot rarely hits.. and if it does ? Thats a problem? ammorack is also one-shot-one-kill .. shall we remove all modules so that “good player wont get one-shot by bad player” ?

    • As that dev said, if you get shot, by whatever arty, you deserve it. But feel free to believe otherwise

      • Have you considered that most of the dev’s are actually bad at this game, which is why they even create such a retarded email thread as the one revealed here.

    • In other words: “If you are a good player, you don’t understand game design.”
      That’s pretty much exactly the opposite of the truth.

    • Wow, skilled players at a tanks game would actually like to fight other tanks and not get nuked from orbit by someone not really playing a tanks game? The nerve!

  9. funny how they still dont realize, that the problem with arys isnt it being op but to damn rng depending, playing “good” with ary is 95% luck and 5% skill and THATS the problem.

    • Than you try to hit a moving target across the map,
      ofcourse if you hit is a case of your “luck” (i prefer the RNG, since that seems to be more logical) but you really need some skills and knowledge to play arty in a good manner

    • That “damn RNG dependance” is what makes the arty miss at your conveniently still and out in the open tank.

      Saying that arty is more luck than skill is partially correct, in that its not how you think it is.

      The luck element for an arty is whether or not an enemy tank appears within the direction in which the arty was aiming.
      Whether or not the tank will move away or disappear once you finally aim down on its location, or if the shell would reach it in time.
      Whether or not your shell will actually hit the tank and not ,say, hit at the far corners of the aiming circle.
      Then the usual RNG rolls on damage and penetrations.

      the Skill element in an arty player is how he/she will act to counter the RNG elements.

      Reduce the arty’s randomness and watch it directly hit every standing numskull.

      • It’s that same RNG is what makes your round hit a tank on the move. For a good arty player, it is skill that puts a tank in his sites. If your sitting there being a minimap moron and not aiming where your team is most likely to light an enemy, then you’re not a good arty player and should stop playing it. It is luck when a good arty player, reloading after a shot that completely missed its well aimed mark, sees that red tank move in to the right spot exactly when the round is ready to be fired.

  10. I LOVE this kind of chain mail. SO interesting to read, so so interesting.
    PLEASE for the love of SerB keep posting things like this.

  11. Well, i guess this changed my view on WG a little. Maybe its a little rough there and there, but okay, fine. GJ WG and keep going.

    Anyway, sky cancer … i think its okay as it is now, before the nerf i saw relatively common to get 4-6 arty per team, and they were more accurate and with truly heavy tanks, that was unplayable :( Now, im enjoying the game much more with heavy tanks and arti players from my clan dont complain, they still got good results …
    Anyway, i think the best solution still will be maxing out the arti as 2 per team. That way its a support, it will prevent camping one spot, but noone gets shitstorm of orbital bombardment on their ass too much.

  12. The discussion is completely missing the point. Those good players who whine about arty don’t think arty is overpowered. They are not asking for a nerf. Thus looking at statistics and win rate is utterly pointless.
    The problem with artillery is not a balance problem and it never was. The problem is, artillery doesn’t add enjoyment to the game. It causes frustration and anger because it breaks with the rules of shooter combat. This is inherent by its very basic design. And it is something that can’t be fixed by changing some numbers, buffing, nerfing or rebalancing. The only way to fix this problem is by removing the entire class or reworking it, so its mechanic will be completely different.

    So no, Wargaming doesn’t know what they are doing. They are looking in the completely wrong direction. This is worse than i ever imagined. They not only don’t see the problem, but they don’t even know where to look for it.

    • you clearly dont know arty, it has never been the problem.
      noobs like you, who just whined about arty, just because they cant handle it was the fucking problem.
      so in this case, not wargaming but YOU are one of the problems.
      However i do know the amounts of arty in the game were off limits, that was one of the things WG should have changed.
      Its no fun for the normal tanks but no fun for the arty players either.

        • i can tell you the same

          ive played arty around 2.7K battles and trust me, its not easy.
          Just by looking at the ppl i hit, i can see that the more skilled players know where to be safe and where NOT to stop

          so again, the noobs like you are the problem, not the arty

          • You are missing the point again. I don’t give a flying fuck how hard or easy it is to play arty.
            Read the first post again.
            It is killing the fun. It is frustrating and it feels unfair, even if it is perfectly balanced or underpowered. People do not enjoy having arty in the game. An element of the game that doesn’t add anything or causes more damage than benefit is broken and should be removed or replaced.

            • “… It causes frustration and anger because it breaks with the rules of shooter combat. …”

              I’d be greatly appreciative if you could explain what those mysteriously definitive rules are. Otherwise, this complaint has no merit if you’re going to arbitrarily draw the line about what is part of the rules of a game, and what is not.

              PS. As a player who uses SPGs in my arsenal (which includes all tank classes), I greatly appreciate having a skilled SPG player on my team, as I understand how their tank plays. I am also rarely frustrated from being killed by SPGs since I am usually able to reflect on my actions and find the mistake I made to let myself get killed.

              • What I call “rules of shooter combat” is of course not written in any book. It is what I consider basic rules of creating what will be perceived by the players as fair competition within a shooter type game.
                The first problem is the ability to shoot at someone without him being able (even just in theory) to return fire. This is first caused by the indirect fire, where everybody else can shoot only in a straight line. And second by the draw range limit, which for some reason does not apply to artillery.
                The other major problem is what I like to call the “extremist problem”.
                Pretty much all playable classes and vehicles in World of Tanks are designed as a mixture of firepower, mobility and protection. Those three key features have to be balanced within certain limits. An E 100 has a lot of protection, medium firepower and little mobility. A 13 90 has very good mobility, but at the price of protection. Some tanks lean very strong to one feature while having very little of the other. But all tanks have at least a basic amount of all three features. You wouldn’t create a tank without a gun, armor and with 1 hit point but going 150 kph. Or a tank with 1000 mm of armor and 10k hit points but no gun and tracks. That would be silly. It would break with this trinity of key features. Or a class that has no protection and doesn’t move but is only defined by its gun. Oh wait, that’s already in the game.

                And it is the same problem with tanks like the FV 215b 183 or the Waffenträger auf E 100. They sacrifice almost everything just for the gun. That can be balanced, but it can never be good for the game. That’s why so many people hate those tanks with a passion. They are the extremists of World of Tanks. They don’t fit into the system.
                For artillery this is the basic design feature. How that is supposed to work I cannot grasp.

                • I dont really wanna sound like some fucking asslicker, but you seem like the most intelligent person that can say their opinion without swearing. Respect to you and 100 percent agree.

                • You’re absolutely right and the other guy fails to understand the problem just as much as the devs.

                  To the other guys: Yes, some skill is needed to play arty, but luck is much more involved than in other classes. And I’m also happy about a good arty player on my team, but then again, I’d much rather have him in a MT.

                  And anti-arty =|= noob.

                • Hellfish is a fucking retard.

                  He says people don’t enjoy arty in the game. Well guess what. 95% of people play arty => therefore they enjoy it.

                  His condescending “I am correct” attitude is full of shit just like he is. Worthless.

                  Reality is that this game model (something SerB is pointing out constantly) is designed for 5 classes, arty included. Arty will NEVER be removed, no matter what some pissshit armchair general says. This people run a business with real money to make their living. His opinion is worth exactly as much as a fart in the water since THEIR DATA is what showing the reality not opinion of some pricks on the internet.

                  Alas, SerB is right, once again… forums are filled with whiners and this blog is the worst. 95% of shit here is just pure whine.

                  Fucking losers and butthurt Shitfish is one of them.

                • Surely a game that is perfectly balanced and fair would devolve into something like Chess, for example? Can you not find enjoyment in risk and unknown elements? Victory becomes sweeter the harder it is to achieve.

            • > People do not enjoy having arty in the game. An element of the game that doesn’t add anything or causes more damage than benefit is broken and should be removed or replaced.

              I disagree on both points. 2 artillery pieces add an incredible amount to the gameplay by shifting the dynamic of the fight. You have to mind your surroundings and camouflage mechanics that much more when an artillery piece is on the field. Concealment and concentration of force become that much more important when you’re racing against the clock, and a well placed artillery shell can turn the tide of a pinned down game.

              Without artillery, games can and do become slugging matches. With a good artillery, the matches become much sharper, rewards situational awareness, and not only cooperation between the artillerist and the tanker on front line , but the supporting tanks of that front line.

        • Hes completely right thou. A skilled player will get hit by arty once in a hundred games. If you have any problem with arty, its you, not the arty.

          • Skilled player will be in the front line trying to be usefull for the team so he will be spotted and clicked mercilessly.
            I usually get clicked one out 2 games at least (tier 9-10 med/heavy), and when most of the damage you take is from orbital strikes you know there is something wrong.
            Without speaking of XVM sniping…

          • Suuuuuure with those tiny maps if a player is pinned down from 2 sides, ARTY is actually capable to destroy even the best, unicum player.
            -
            The difference is only that unicum player will probably kill 2+ tanks before he succumb to the arty.

          • Wrong. I’m a uni and the plurality of damage I take is from arty with XVM because I refuse to camp and play to get a win. Arty punishes me for this.

            When I get clipped by a Waffle, it’s my fault because they are otherwise a joke. When I get slowly splashed to death because I’m the primary spotter (maintaining contact with the enemy to keep them pinned, get shots or spot for snipers, not for arty, because fuck arty), the game is broken.

    • Reworking the bird-eye mechanics (or the shooting mechanism or whatever) won’t bring any good if it still works as artillery. In the end it could shoot safely from behind and people will complain.

      I think current arty “solution” is a good solution. Limiting arty further will bring MM problems (bottleneck, you will always have 2 arty per game and long arty queue) and removing them from the game is too risky for stability-wise and monetary-wise. Arty may be a bad idea from the very beginning, but at this point the best solution indeed may be simply nerfing them to the ground and slowly making only “dedicated” players play them, which is already happened.

      • well by decreasing the maximum amount of arty in a game, you will automatically make it a player dedicated type, due the long MM times.

        The current arty is not that bad when you look to gun specs, but it can use the old driving stats…

        • You shouldn’t punish anyone with long queue time – that’s not how dedication works. You are more likely to lose that customer, instead of making him “dedicated” – and that’s stuff every MMO tries to avoid.

    • finally, I thought I would not see this comment here. Cant agree more.

      They know what they are doing in the terms of the format they created. But the format itself (see “existence of arty”) is all wrong in the first place. Ideal state for the game would be no arty and hardcap for TDs. (talking about random games of course). Bang, problem solved, everybody is having much more fun. Because now?

      Lets face it. What are the most common reasons for people to play arty?

      1) they want to grind the tier 10 for CWs, cant argue with that (not so common though)
      2) they want to piss all the others, because they got one shotted in the previous battle while driving their mighty IS-7, so they apply “eye for an eye”
      3) they cant drive any proper tanks and suck in them, give up on trying to improve, instead go play arty because its easiest class to handle (in terms of amount of things they have to learn – basically just spots to go and preaiming on moving targets)

      If more than 10 percent of arty players played it just because “its fun”, Id be very, very surprised. Not telling it aint true though.

      Its a fact that most of the so called “arty whiners” are good to excellent players (can count myself into them i guess) crying about them being killed by “tomatos”. And thats in fact one of the most frustrating things in the game. When you got killed by absolutely retard player who would not stand a chance number one even sitting in an E100 against you for example in a T-44.

      But to be fair, WoT is not competetive game (in terms of skill and dedicated playerbase) in the first place, the concept is still more of a casual. So I guess we all “arty whiners” should just deal with it or move on to another game. I get some occasional rages once at a time, but usually I just sigh and move on to another battle when get one shotted or sth. Because WG would never listen to 5 percent amount of good players, since they got another 70 percent of “daddys” who can score their punch only in arty :)

      thank you for the comment anyway, hellfish

      • How can a player be “good to excellent”, yet let themselves be killed by SPGs? Usually sticking to some hard cover is sufficient to prevent direct hits, and then choosing to move between covered zones while the enemy is reloading.

        • oh please, give me a break. I literally hate this kind of arguments. Please tell me how can you hide on Prokhorovka, Murovanka, Mines or half of the other maps? Even on bloody Himmelsdorf if you are trying to be agressive on the hill you are gonna get punished by arty preaimed on that side of a castle. Because if you are trying to be active and do something for your team, you usually have to expose your tank. And with the new map changes, when they make it all just corridors, any half brained arty player will be preaimed on the corners and just wait for you to make the move.

          You can “stick to hard cover” all day long, but would provide no support for your team.

          I am not saying I get oneshotted every second battle. But even if its one of 50, its annoying and frustrating. Not to mention arty players can pick anybody on the enemy team by xvm stats and then bully them all the battle.

          • that´s exactly the problem. arty isnt countering some damn TDs camping in the corner of the map. arty is punnishing active play.

            sticking to same hard cover for whole battle is what tomatoes do…

          • >Even on bloody Himmelsdorf if you are trying to be agressive on the hill you are gonna get punished by arty preaimed on that side of a castle

            The only problem there is that it’s easy to spot tanks on the hill from the plaza. That entire ledge is dangerously exposed to everything if the enemy team has plaza control, not just artillery.

        • Hugging a cover won’t win you a game and any try to go out of the cover and actually play the game will result in being clicked for a moron 1 km away. If i’m being forced to camp behind solid cover just to avoid a monkey clicker then i’ll rather play another game where i actually play and not waste my time. You really think all the good-excellent players would have those WR and stats if they camped behind the cover all the game? So cut your pubbie bullshit with moving when a cancerboy is reloading implying i am fucking psychic so i can know when he’s reloading and when he’s not. I now perfectly well where a clicker won’t be able to hit me and where it can it’s just that i don’t find any fun in sitting in one spot for the whole game relying on other random 14 pubs to win the game for me.

            • Well i’m pretty sure i learned to play which my WR and other stats could imply. And i haven’t achieved those by hugging a cover. Dunning-Krugers fucktard.

              • Since you are not 100% sure, i recomend that you go back to playing WoT in stead of whining about WoT

                • Well i’m 100% sure you’re a fucking moron. So there’s that. Please refrain from commenting if you don’t have anything smarter to say than grasping at straws.

            • Smia. Check your winrate. And start thinking how YOU could have played better without camping.

        • “How can a player be “good to excellent”, yet let themselves be killed by SPGs?”

          When you’re actually good at this game you’ll have your answer. This is a question baddies ask to be perfectly frank.

          • Upon reflection, I could have better phrased the question “Surely the better players know how to play in order to mitigate the affect of enemy SPGs.” I’m perfectly well aware that camping behind cover the entire game is unlikely to result in victory. It’s all about taking calculated risks, and I consider explosive death falling from the skies simply to be an added level of challenge in the game.

            I know that in rare situations, there’s simply nothing a good player can do about it – but that’s just bad luck, perhaps 1 in 50 battles or 1 in 100 you might get knocked out with a single shot. I’ve experienced that phenomenon myself, and I’m happy to live with those odds. The fact that the game includes artillery was never any secret, so it really begs the question why the vocal “arty haters” are still playing the game if they don’t like its mechanics. The statistics in the article are fairly damning evidence about the overall popularity of SPG vehicles. Under-performing team members will show up regardless of what class of vehicle they drive; that they choose SPGs (the weakest class in the game) is simply another case of bad luck.

      • Fucking moron. Another one of the retards that thinks he understands business and game models better than people making millions with theirs.

        Hardcapping? EVERY fucking study showed it’s the worst decision ever. By suggesting it, you automatically place yourself in fucktard pile and therefore get insulting reply. Worthless.

    • To me, arty does add enjoyment, and no it’s not because I’m masochistic. I feel that an arty being in a game, adds variety, where the dynamics are constantly being shifted. You have to play differently in a game with artillery. For one, you have to constantly think about cover, to think about whether or not you can go hull down. It adds challenge to the game.

      That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy games without arty, it’s fun sometimes, but when it becomes something that happens so often it stops being challenging, it just becomes routine.

      Plus, when arty is around, I can always depend on them to kill hull down T32s XD

  13. You just have to give tracer back to TD shots, and then, no more problems. Arty can kill camping TD. Or try… RNG…

    • You mean those camping turds in TDs that are usually spotted only at the end of the game when half of the teams are dead. You mean those morons that sits far behind the maximum view range and in no way can be hitted by arties since they are unlit for majority of time. Typical pubbie mindset.

      • thats the same as complaining about LTs that they move and they are scouting, or complaining that meds are flankers…
        TDs are snipers, they dont have a turret, what you described is basically their role. Sure there are some “broken ones” but most of them are okay…

        (I’m not talking about t9 or t10 TDs… those things are like heavies…spotting them is to no use since they have 2k+ hitpoints… takes ages to kill them even when spotted. Im talking about tier4-7)

      • You have some serious anger issues dude, I’d seek professional help if I were you, it’s just a game…relax a bit

        • The thing is i’m perfectly calm :D I just use my own method to reach into the pubbies brain. You see if i behave myself and use much nicer language my comments would be ignored and not taken seriously. But if you call out a shitlord and call him names like a faggot that he is you’re assure you’ll get the feedback from him :D

  14. Name me 1 player, with more than 1000 games, that has a higher win ratio in their SPG than in any other class of tank.

    Nobody wins with artillery, unless it’s in the lower tiers, where accuracy and reload speed are phenomenal sometimes (SU-18 I’m looking at you).

    So why aren’t people crying out to nerf meds / lights / heavies? They win more with them, they must be OP!

    • http://www.noobmeter.com/player/eu/incurably/500054639/

      94.69% WR GWE-100. Well, it’s probably from CW, but there are others such as Obj. 212 with 83.94%. I have no idea how someone can achieve this kind of stats, really, even with platooning.

      Meanwhile, my overall arty WR is mere 49% when the entire of other types are >55% (with mediums as the highest). Up till now I still think that I’m very stupid when I’m driving SPG, leading shots and pre-aiming somehow are very hard while other SPG players usually seems like doing fine.

    • Playing artillery is much harder when it comes to winning battles. First you need a map where you can be useful. You also are much more dependant – you need someone to spot enemy tanks without getting instakilled, or defend you from kamikaze scouts – but if you manage to get that, and you know how to play it you will have a great impact on the game.

        • I bet a superunicum can manage that with all classes, it doesn’t prove anything idiot. Try not to whine so hard Medjed!

          • He wanted 1 player with with amazing stats in arties i gave it to them. Want another one? Search for Garbad’s(he’s the actual anti-arty hater mentioned in this article)SPG challenges. Stop being butthurted by everything i said. And if you don’t mind i’d like to get your ingame nickname and server you’re playing on. Just for scientific purposes.

          • Ehh, you can check Garbad’s arty challenge in official forums. It did prove arty (pre 8.6) to be easymode.

        • If different = broken to you then maybe you should change the animal in your nickname and in your avatar to monkey – should suit you more. The whole idea of the arty in the game is to be different. If you didn’t realise it by now, then I have some bad news.

    • Because playing arty is basically a sanctioned form of griefing.

      Griefers don’t care if they win so long as they ruin the game for someone else. This is exactly the mindset of anyone who loves to play arty.

  15. “Its the same with some Europeans against Poland, its disgusting to hear immature playerbase, and will be ignored rightly so……”

    Oh, like it’s possible to ignore the EU community more than it already was -_-

  16. Funny, seems they really only care about win rate, and yet they nerf the Waffles because they do damage, even though they lose. They don’t seem to mind the 122-44 or IS-6 win rates. Why do they let some tanks languish in the 46%-47% range for years if they actually give a shit about win rates?

      • And who does you pathetic waste of human shit? Should they care about your happiness and well being? I for one, would pay money for the opposite.

    • Premium tanks are very rarely nerfed. Look at T26E4, when they “rebalanced” it they had to refund players. Imagine refunding SU-122-44 and IS-6.
      Another thing is, WTF100 is broken, not the other two. Su-122-44 is very stronk, even OP but it doesn’t turn game into campfests (unless you have like what, 7 of them?) Same with IS-6.

  17. Nothing is wrong with the TDs. I used to be a heavy/TD player, now I prefer faster tanks, but I don’t think TDs are OP. I have never said “OMG OP TD one-shoted my scout” or “I had no chance to kill a TD in a 1vs1 in my med”.

    This time WG is the good guy, imo.

  18. ‘…these little krayfish dont even know what they want, all they want is win, win, win, and when they dont win they blame anything that can be accounted for, once we Nerf artillery, Tank Destroyers will come, they are blind and only see what they have the most immediate benefit of their wins, and then we will have a Tank Destroyer problem – too strong to be maintained in check! and the cycle will repeat,…’

    ^This so true for a large percent of the player base.

  19. “most offenders are from UK/Germany/Czech based on report counts, least comes from Italy and Poland ”

    This is just insane….

    • what did you expect? :) cant tell about germans and brits, but I as a member of Czech community am literally ashamed about our playerbase. Its full of wankers and retards, you rarely see a good AND well behaving player. Sad but true.

    • Hey now, I find the lack of France disturbing.

      Our youths are annoying little shits on the internet.
      Seriously, had I guessed, they would have been first on that list, followed by Germans hot on their heels.

      Can’t say I’m surprised about Poland!
      Polandball can into happy gameplay!

      • france ?
        They are not there because they usually speak french :D

        Even if you say the most horrible sentence in the universe… in french it sounds like a romantic poem…

        • I’m french and i still agree, i was really thinking that we would reach the top of the list. But that’s also true that the english level in france is pretty weak. Even if our kids read “Retards” “fucking morons” “asshole” to each game i don’t think they could understand a word of that. In fact i’m pretty sure they think that they are playing to mario kart but with tanks instead…

  20. The Elephant in the room, that is being totally missed is the role of the light tanks, whose job it was to spot the enemy, perhaps find a gap to wreck havoc in the enemies rear area, spotting arty, killing arty, but good scouts are few and far between and the accuracy buff in 0.86 makes a good scout to easy to kill, and I don’t mean the suicide scouts. In 8.6 it should have been a light tank cammo buff, and the arty problem as it was perceived would be balanced. Now they still have a light tank problem, a problem left unresolved.

    • Making maps into corridors where a light tank is forced to play 1v1 frontally against heavies/TDs/meds will help them solve the problem for sure. Just shows how WG is clueless as fuck.

      • Remove or modify the hard corridor maps, remove arty = TDs are not OP because they can be outpaced and outflanked but still counter direct assaults, lights can screen and exploit gaps/flanks, and heavies and mediums do the aforementioned with a bias toward assault and flanking respectively.

        An actual tanks game.

        • Lol if this game was designed by that pathetic shit Medjed, it would just have one tank that has one button. Every time you press the button it would tell you ” You Won!” give you exp and silver while deducting money from your account to fund his “pumping shit out of his brain” procedure.

          Much money is needed for this. So long to make it happen.

          • Instead of trying to trash talk me(you seriously suck at it, don’t do it pls) you could actually give me a counter argument to where i was wrong when i said that making maps into corridors will not help LTs to gain some importance.

            • Fine: Some maps are corridors. Some maps are cities. Some maps are open field. This means a dumb shit can’t like you can’t pigeon hole his gameplay. If you are good, you will adapt a tank to any field. If you just want to sit and snipe, well fuck you, because this isn’t a world of snipers.

  21. That’s some great Insider action!

    Could we see an original (Russian) version of the mails? Translation is ok, but there are always problems with translation. It would especially intersting to see the Serb’s monologue.

  22. if they knew what to do… they would ban more donkeys… the frustration of playing t8 in a t10 match led by RED IS-7 platoon is reaching my limits.

  23. as it was noted since the “arty nerf”, the nerf was handled improperly by WG – this was discussed at that time on WoT official forums

    this only confirms one thing: SPGs were the major dmg dealers on the battlefield

  24. Developer 12 (EU): RIP Arty, leave it alone already! if they get hit its their fault, despite how much they deny it, no win ratio can be maintained above 50% by playing pure artillery unlike any other tank and no player exists like that despite claims.
    _______________________
    You stupid brainless fuck. If arty gets under 50% WR it means it is underperforming. Now where did you saw good players saying it’s OP? Nowhere, because it’s not fucking OP, if anything it is UP, but that’s not the point you dumb fuck. Arty’s mechanic is broken and broken=/=OP you dumb fuck. Once you realise that maybe you’ll get the anti-arty rant, but i’m sure even then it will be to much of a work for your tiny brain. Sitting in the back lobbing shells over obstacles w/o any way of being countered(except other enemy arty, but that is neglectable since they rarely do that nowadays) with the birds eye view is broken mechanic that creates passive and campy playstyle. As for TDs. Did you dumb fucks really thought people will play underperforming arties when they can stroke their dicks in super broken powercreeped T10 TDs that were introduced(waffleshit100 and 183 mainly) You do realise if you give a broken tank that can dish out stupidly broken amount of damage in 10 seconds to a retard that retard will use it because it gives him a feel of satisfaction and feel that he’s actually doing something useful. If you would check the statistics you’d see that mostly good players play medium tanks and not T10 TDs. Remove the fucking arty and remove the retarded T10 TDs and you’ll have a fucking game of the century. That will never happen ofcourse because if you remove arties you’ll remove the only way a 44% WR 700 WN8 monkey can do any dmg in the game and even a red 44%er pays for a premium account and gives his cash to WG and in the end that’s only that matters. Profit>game playability

      • I get that. They clearly let us know that anything that doesn’t bring the money/profit they don’t give a fuck about it. Can’t blame them, but it’s still sad to see that once great game is being only a milking cow to devs and nothing else atm. With that attitude they won’t get far.

        • well I dont see it as pesimisticly as you do. For me the game is still fun and probably will be for quite some time. They definitely suck at dealing with customers and playerbase, but for me the basic concept of the game is so good that even their attitude cant ruin it :D cant have it all I guess :) They are too big company to actually care. Smaller developer studios do that, not the big ones, sadly.

        • if they wont get money, we wont play game :)
          simple as that. As much as you hate the fact they do it for money…

          Its their JOB, not a hobby or a goodwill so that you can have fun and play tanks… its only about money.
          Just like any other company. Sure they want to “make customer happy” but only so that he will spend more money!
          It’s never about “being kind to customer so that he feels good”
          This is reality, and I find it quite obvious…

    • I think the dumb fuck here is you Medjed :( I think it’s best that you give up WOT since you clearly suck and only cry over game mechanics you dont now how to conquer!

      • Says the fuckpubbie that uses fake nickname here probably because he’s an avid denier #statsareluck #iplay4fun #Medjedrustledmyjimmiessohard

        The fact is i don’t even know who the fuck are you nor do i care, but i obviously achived another FTR hater :D This was a good day afterall.

      • How do you conquer 4 tier 10 arty on the enemy team kid?

        A. hide in a bush at the back
        B. huddle against a predictable isolated boulder
        C. huddle against one side of a chokepoint and then have to facefight TDs
        D. try to advance, attack and kill as fast as possible, use sparse terrain features to hide from direct fire, and inevitably become the focus of arty because you are the only one really doing anything that helps macro a win.

        I guarantee you don’t do D because if you did, you’d be a good player and therefore not an advocate for a class of vehicle that forces people to play like bitches.

    • >Sitting in the back lobbing shells over obstacles w/o any way of being countered(except other enemy arty, but that is neglectable since they rarely do that nowadays) with the birds eye view is broken mechanic that creates passive and campy playstyle.
      Before 8.6, it did because the amount of reliable firepower you could put out was insane.

      But that all then went away. Artillery struggle to reliably tie up an advance alone now. If the advance stops, it immediately starts doing better.

      • I can think of multiple positions on multiple maps where the best advancement points aren’t arty safe. In fact off hand I believe in total most of them are.

        The points that are relatively safe are…*GASP*…are much farther back and/or have a more limited view/field of fire, aka not actively helping the team to win, aka camping.

    • See, again that pathetic Medjed opens his shit hole. Across the board EVERY fucking tank in the game has to have 49% win rate to be balanced because it’s a) statistics and b) fucking draws.

      I can’t wait for the day you quit this game. Oh that would be a miracle!

      • Well i wouldn’t quit this game even if i would play 1 game per month just in spite of morons like you. Did i really rustled your jimmies that badly?

  25. Arty right now is not OP, but imbalanced. WG should just rework their HE mechanism in a way that their deal low damage but huge splash radius. The arties should get better aiming time, better reload and worse accuracy. I mean, arties weren’t a precision weapon, but used for covering an entire area.

    • This post is one of the most intelligent one I have read so far, along with what Hellfish said.

      Movement has to be rewarded further, I do hope that general accuracy nerf is going to happen, so that meds and lights could actually flank TDs and arties again.
      Their will be less whining about TDs and arties.

      • If you increase splash, even if you reduce the damage, you kill movement.

        Imagine every time you move, and an arty fires, you lose your tracks….
        Mediums and heavies would never move again, snipers eager to have detracked targets in front of them would camp harder.

  26. Wow, serb actually nailed it right on.
    Although I won’t forget:
    “bigworld is better than dagor” -SerB 2014
    Seems the guy has his moments more often than not.

  27. “Confirmed, playing Obj 212 makes onions cry, how is this even fun now?”

    Sums my thoughts up perfectly. There are a few SPGs that are still fun to play, but the majority just aren’t enjoyable at all. I’m quite frankly surprised at how many people still bother. The only upside is that people are now so used to have no arty at all that they make inviting targets.

    And as enjoyable as it was to nuke a full speed, zig-zagging AMX 13-90 from orbit with my Su-14, it was a total fluke and I know it.

  28. I’d like to know who DEV 5 is, he seems a reasonable and intelligent guy.

    Also, LTs were stealthnerfed together with arty, it’s nobrainer that they are underperforming now. Every other class can spot for themselves – sometimes even better than LTs (vide, 420m viewrange for top ones vs 400m viewrange for top LTs).

  29. Very interesting insider information. Shows that WG does listen to the playerbase, albeit the wrong one. The “average” WoT player has no idea what they want, it’s just like asking a kid if he knows a cure to aids <.<

  30. Serb should get a number of developers accounts, come to the US and EU servers, and give away 2500 gold to any player who kills them with arty. Let’s see if they’ll put their virtual money where their mouth is.

  31. “So what do you think? Well, SerB called it and it happened, the dominance of TD’s that led to another round of nerfs. The moral of the story is: Wargaming people know what they are doing. Usually.”

    As soon as I heard about an arty nerf I knew that there was gonna be a TD problem. The ignorant masses in the player base never take a look at themselves to see if they are the problem. It always has to be someone else’s fault and arty was the scapegoat. This caused an unbalance in the background checks and balances system. Because arty was nerfed TDs now reign and I feel that once light tanks get the buffs they deserve it will hurt the arty even more because scouting is a major part of this game and the team with the best spotters will win. Maybe it will cause the devs to buff arty again.

    • TDs don’t reign because arty is less effective against them,

      TDs are more common because all the scrubs migrated from arty to TDs, even though the nerf wasn’t really that bad at all (mitigated by sigma change in same patch).

      • Sigma change? You mean the one which the arty was not a part of?

        There are more camping tanks now because the arty aren’t able to take them out as effectively. No matter what you say will not change this fact. Every match I am in that doesn’t have arty turns into a 15 minute camp fest. Arty keeps tanks moving.

  32. I love the people who still argue their point, despite everything the email reveals. If you’re not having fun because arty exists, then there’s something wrong with your gameplay. I’ve never blamed or got upset about being killed by arty…or by any other tank. If I drive in front of someone’s gun barrel, or sit out in the open, that makes me a dufus.

    • well thats what internet is for (apart from many other things) – discussion. People dont want to just give up their opinions because SerB said something. I know it will never change but Im not gonna sit here and approve whatever some clickers-defender gonna say :))

      • We’re supposed to huddle against the side of a chokepoint and facefight TDs, huddle against predictable isolated boulders that everything will be scoped in on, or simply stay as far back as possible and not get spotted.

        This is interesting and dynamic gameplay to scrubs and devs.

      • Learn to take a hit and advance together when you see an opening.

        This question is so damn vague.

  33. So what do you think? Well, SerB called it and it happened, the dominance of TD’s that led to another round of nerfs. The moral of the story is: Wargaming people know what they are doing. Usually.

    No they don’t, they really don’t.

    The reason why clickers and TDs are such a huge problem is the retarded alpha they have. There is nothing wrong with arty hitting targets and doing damage but doing 1-2k on average? That’s not balanced and it takes a complete retard to be so completely blind but apparently retards is what WG is hiring.

    Best solution for arty is nerfing damage by 75% and giving them a massive RoF and accuracy buff across all tiers. Same goes for high tier TDs, rebalance guns above 500 alpha.

    A revision of the HP/damage system is what is needed not something like the great arty “nerf” of 8.6 (really not a nerf).

    • Your post gave me cancer

      So first, instead of huge alpha dmg on arty you prefer a lower dmg and bigger RoF ?

      HAH – next time you will be whining that you are almost permatracked by arty and your modules and crew gets insanely easily destroyed/killed. After that the butthurt will come – nerf arty RoF

      As for the TD’s – even more retarded. TD’s are TD’s, as name suggests. Balance the dmg ? What ? Maybe you want TD damage to be almost equal to other T10 tanks ? Or even lower ? No one will play a TD that cant DT

      Made my day…

      • I will give you one word: Tortoise.

        Same alpha as NATO HT, but somehow is overperforming according to Devs.

        I love that tank.

    • “There is nothing wrong with arty hitting targets and doing damage but doing 1-2k on average? ”

      I would love to have the arty that can do 1k-2k damage on average.
      GW Type E on IS7 frontally is between 800 and 900 damage, for reference.

      Seriously, it’s like whiners don’t even play arty, just see the one-shots and go into a blind rage.

  34. There were more TDs around after the arty nerf, but the overpowered ones were taken care of. Apart from the Waffles, maybe.

    • Not all escaped nerfbat. IMO ISU/S-35CA need some nerf, and SU-100Y really do feel like cancer with prem rounds. But hey, low tiers play4fun, no worries.

      • SU-100Y? seriously? not that I stick around T6 much, but that thing never scared me, even in not so good T6 tanks.

        • Its just the best Tier 6 TD around. I got around 70% win rate in it, being an average player. Its even stronger than KV1S. It no just one shots T5 tanks with luck, it ALWAYS one shots them. It can even one hit tier 5 heavies. Also, it guaranteed two shots all tier 6 tanks, oh and, has enough pen and alpha to easily cause a lot of pain to tier 7 and 8 tanks ..

          That thing is a monster. Played right its insanely powerful.

  35. wg should this at start – buff lights instead of nerfing arty. now lights are paper meds and bush spotters for tds. before they could hunt 2-3-arties counterscout, spot for arty and overall play more actively. now enemy base run ordepp map spotting is not viable – usulally there is only one blind arty per team

  36. This series of emails are so disgusting that they are most likely fake. It is likely they completely forgot about the massive buffs for TDs that came along with patch 8.6.
    Patch 8.6 didn’t bring only the tiny nerfs to artillery, which hasn’t changed the nature of makes it broken. It just made it even more boring to play. The patch also brought changes , which no one asked, such as camo, vision, sigma and a bunch of other stuff.
    The series of emails completely ignores everything. Of course, from a moronic point of view ignoring all the other stuff, apparently the TD problem begins after arty lost its ability to make TDs useless. Remember, the buffs to TDs were made to make them viable, according to WG, but no player has asked for the buffs. The numbers never lie, right?
    Everytime serious players starts complaining about something, they do it with a reason, and WG always uses the “it is statisctically fine”, because the numbers never lie…..then, several months, sometimes years, later the devs discovers the truth, that the numbers does lie and the players were right.

    • Which players you turd? Half the players say one thing, the other half says exact opposite. Which ones that turned out to be right? YOUR side?

      What a fucking tool.

  37. “Tank Destroyer players have increased by 40% in data feeds however their win ratios are maintained, its not a problem for now, Kruta and Grom are maintaining a look at it.”

    Translation: Players who could relax in base now can get spotted and killed. This confirms that arty was too easy to play. Though now it is more a slot machine which is worse for the arty players but better for non-arty players.

  38. Epic

    Just epic

    Looks like SerB is a freaking seer

    What will be next ? Stronk whine about meds (coming from “pure heavy players”) cus they can pen em from sides ???

    This is totally hilarious.

    • No he was wrong.

      “Tank Destroyer players have increased by 40% in data feeds however their win ratios are maintained, its not a problem for now, Kruta and Grom are maintaining a look at it.”

      • Wut ?

        “these little krayfish dont even know what they want, all they want is win, win, win, and when they dont win they blame anything that can be accounted for, once we Nerf artillery, Tank Destroyers will come, they are blind and only see what they have the most immediate benefit of their wins, and then we will have a Tank Destroyer problem – too strong to be maintained in check!”

        • There was already a TD problem. They buffed TD camo values with paint and camo nets, making them a bigger problem.

          Then they added the new OP german TD line.

          Yep, totally unexpected. Keep in mind, they develop tank lines way before patches, so they probably already had the new german td line drawn up. “let me make an OP TD line then say everyone will start playing more td’s after a nerf x class”. Gee, what a seer you are…

  39. Hello everyone,
    Please note that WOT is just trying to survive,
    As I remember, changing the MM was bigger and more massive than arty nerf,
    Some of you guys may remember those days when there was KV facing tier 9s one shotting tier 3-4-5-6s ,
    The change of how HE shells work was a big change and was such a massive wave …
    U think serB , or storm or any of devs, themselves, are happy with the changes every time ? Are they happy that they can not introduce Sturmtiger line ? Which is hafly ready and modeled ?
    Wot changes and it has to, in order to survive, and please please note that “EVERY CHANGE IS NOT TO IMPROVE AND POSITIVE” sometimes they are choosing the worse over worst !
    I do not think im expert in wot, cause i am really not, cause I dont play wot much, but i have been playing wot after beta those wot 6.5 days ,,, I’ve just experienced many changes as many of you might …… remember the past wot is trying to survive and in my opinion it was successful in many challenges ,
    I was disappointed when they changed he, when they changed MM when they nerfed arty, THEY were disappointed too ////

  40. Gotta say, they seem to have their shit together, I am truly impressed.
    (and no, I’m not sarcastic)

  41. SerB’s right on this one.

    There’s a special place in hell reserved for the whining nerfing minority.

    I think I called this almost 2 years ago when I started noticing the whine-trend on the NA forums way back then. I’ve been in gaming development for longer than this game’s been out to the public and the “nerf-campaign” is always the same among all games. If you can’t win, you whine.

    The majority of the player-base don’t participate in the forum discussions and if they really had an issue, most of them would probably flood over and increase the whine thread output. First it was arty, then it was TD’s, and lately it’s autoloaders.

    Basically what the whining minority want is “World of nerf cannons” where all tanks are Maus armored, the guns fire styrofoam balls, and the top speeds are 90km/h. Oh wait… that’s everyone elses tank, the whiners will want a SturmTiger’s potential alpha damage in a T-50-2 package.

    • Someone didn’t read. They were told to ignore the vocal minority, and put any nerfs on the backburner, yet months later they nerfed them anyway. What does that tell you (besides that all the talk did not happen over emails)?

    • ” I’ve been in gaming development for longer than this game’s been out to the public”

      hey guis I was a pro game developer, did you know guis, yeah longer than game was out, yeah guis I so hardcore, yeah so listen to me cus guis I knows what I am talking about…NOT!

      lel…get out.

    • And yet the best players in the game, the winners, want arty removed or drastically reworked.

      Obviously you are shit at this game and play arty. I guara’fuckin’tee it.

      • How about me? I don’t want arty removed and I bet my shit stinks as much as yours, you worthless pos.

        Every second post there is some fucking cunt thinking he speaks for the best players. What a bunch of pathetic losers.

        • I’m in the 99th percentile shitlord.

          What a shock your 9th most played vehicle is the GWE100 and it has the best winrate out of your top 13.

          Fucking called it.

      • No they don’t, because the best players in the game need arty do defend their provinces and rape others. The good players know how to use arty, they know how to avoid arty and they know they need arty.

        Simple.

  42. Either they don’t play their own game or they just suck bad at it.

    Bottom line is active playing gets punished because the moment you decide to push an area you get nuked to smithereens. Yeah ofcourse if you camp behind a rock and wait the whole game (what the 100-800 wn8 arty defenders are doing) you’re safe. But you’re useless too.

    I have ConquerorGC, got it for the British technical engineer award. So don’t tell me they suck and I don’t know because I haven’t played one. Everytime a 300 wn8 arty kills me in my med I just go play Whac-A-Mole in my CGC to blow of steam. They’re OP as fuck.

    Even CW proves arties are OP and Broken. Everytime you see an arty with 6-8k dmg…

  43. They should have left arty lines ending at tier 7.
    They were in games for support,usually in bottom tier, they were money makers and even tho there still was whining it wasn’t so massive. Now WG is locked in neverending nerf cycle fueled by whiners.

    “… most offenders are from UK/Germany/Czech based on report counts, least comes from Italy and Poland”
    Surprise! Surprise! Everyone’s scape goats are among the best behaving players while the butthurt frustrated babies, pointing fingers at others and blaming them for their mistakes, are the worst ones.

    • WoT was sooo much better before 8.6 – and not only with artys, with other classes as well.

      BUFF ARTYS!

      • hope your post was sarcastic

        WoT before 8.6 was basically unplayable on higher tiers due to shitloads of arty in every freaking game.

  44. “SerB called it”

    My ass. It was intentional. They BUFFED td camo values in the SAME patch they nerfed arty. Check the patch notes.

    Well no shit sherlock, when a bunch of players are used to playing a passive, campy gamestyle and you make it remotely difficult (good arty players are still good, bad arty players are still bad or play TD’s) they flock to the next easy thing that they can camp in.

    I won’t rant about the blantantly OP TD line they added in later on…

    What a surprise…

  45. Thanks for this information, pretty intriguing to learn that many of the whiners about arty actually play it themselves. So many with end tier arty too!

    • Do you have any level of critical thinking skills?

      All the top clans use arty in CW because it’s often a necessary evil due to map design , their alpha, and not knowing if the enemy will bring their own. That doesn’t mean they want it.

      • He likes arty, which means he is void of any critical thinking ability, since doing anything other than sitting in a corner and clicking with one finger is too hard.

        • artys is the most difficult tank to master and thats why you guys don’t like it !!
          (lets try the arty OMG its too hard !! remove the arty )

  46. Hardly difficult to call (predict) IMO.

    There are five types of vehicles: Arty, H+M+L tanks and TD’s.

    Arty is the most “alien” of the vehicles, then comes TD’s.
    With LT’s consistently underperforming, it’s unlikely they’d be the target of whining, leaving only MT’s and HT’s and they form the majority of the tanks being played. Everyone plays these tanks and as such they – as a group – even out.
    This effectively only leaves TD’s to be a potential problem.

    The slippery-slope argument, that after Arty comes TD’s come… is invalid. There’s only so many vehicles that can be nerfed (or buffed). What would come after TD? HT? And then what?

    • What is really hilarious is that developers were saying “how is this even fun now” while on test quickybaby made a video about arty and how it was actually easier than before due to the downtiering of previously top tier artillery so you hit harder, and the sigma changes cancelled out the accuracy changes (should still be on his channel if you want to check it out). Just shows the skillset of developers and how if they want to balance the game based on their experience they need to get better at their own game or start taking good player’s opinions into consideration.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGm0PqWVsgM

  47. Arty was OP because of the mechanics. TD’s are OP because not only do they have huge guns with insane pen (they barely need gold ammo), but also better armor than heavies and some of them are too agile. Combine that with low profile in some cases and there you go. Each of them needed to be balanced by something (Jpz E-100 is big, easy to spot and slow, WT E-100 is big, has the worst camo and no armor, Obj 263 doesn’t have huge alpha, FV 183 has weak armor, but ridiculous gold ammo, Obj 268 doesn’t have amazing armor, but insane camo, E3 is slow but impenetrable from the front).

  48. My compliments to Serb. Stop listening to whiners who complain about anything if they don’t win (it’s never their fault). Look at the stats.

    • For once I got Serbs back on this one focus on the statistics nothing more nothing less.

  49. “Developer 11 (US): Usually banned/disgruntled players are thriving in a forum called wotlabs.net, players that dislike arty/TDs are led by a banned player on the forums.”

    LMAOOOO even though “Garbad” got banned ages ago from their forums they are still feeling his power

  50. Both interesting and stupid. The argument about arty is that 90% players play it?

    The problem with arty is it can’t be balanced and it causes camping because parts of map are unusable. If the arty was still as in 8.5 patch I would quit the game and never spent so much money on it. Because why should I play tank battle where guided missiles fall from the sky and tanks must hide behind house not to be hit by a satellite?

    • The figure that was thrown out was that 95% of players play artillery. Which is as relevant a statement as saying a game is successful because it has had 100 million user accounts created.

      Unfortunately all of this side steps that the fundamental question about artillery. Is artillery a broken game mechanic? It doesn’t matter how many people use a tool, if that tool is broken. If anything, if that tool is broken in the over-powered direction, even more people will use it, because that is what some players look for when deciding what to play.

      • Yes, that’s true, but for me it was the broken gameplay. I remember to be on old El Halluf where I went with E-75 all alone to that brawling spot at A1. There was possible to take a spot where arty could not hit you. And than five enemy tanks attacked and started to climb that hill. All of them were so damaged by arty before they reached me that I just killed them one by one. Than I just went out for the enemy arty and won. And after that victory I decided – either 8.6 brings a nerf to arty or I quit this stupid game. Well, they nerfed it and I still pay the premium year after.

  51. They are really lazy the fix real problems. Instead of really hard work on problems they simply ignore as long as possible and try to silince real players… OFC Why because they was single tank MMO @ market. Now new game is coming. They will hard work for a REAL GAME!.

  52. Wotlabs.com is now the arty hate capital of the world….. Wotlabs Represent!

    I am in tears with how proud I am.

  53. Wow, so the developers are aware of WoTLabs and consider us to be banned/disgruntled players?

    That is kinda sad because the fact is most of us really do like WoT a lot. If we didn’t we wouldn’t spend so much time trying to write guides and discuss game strategy.

    • it is very disheartening to hear how somebody at wargaming can gloss over wotlabs like that

      my guess the only reason why wotlabs exist because most of the users over there disagree with how the moderators over at http://forum.worldoftanks.com/ run the forums and how certain players are allowed to say really dumb stuff like how stats cannot prove how good somebody is. so one guy simply made a new forums and it grew in popularity and many of us loves how http://forum.wotlabs.net/ is run.

      “Developer 11 (US): Usually banned/disgruntled players are thriving in a forum called wotlabs.net, players that dislike arty/TDs are led by a banned player on the forums.”
      led by a banned player? this does not exist there are no leaders at wotlabs.

      yes we do have a culture that hates arty because when you look at arty when you are a good player say above 60% average solo win rate. you start to learn how it punishes skilled players trying to win the game. when you play arty itself you cannot achieve a high win rate in it solo and all it does is punish skilled players trying to win the game if you can’t see that then you just don’t get it. so many players have come to call arty cancer due to the fact it lessons the possibly gameplay and fun by a lot.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTnHo3IHtS4

      we hate tanks like the waffle and arty because those tanks take low skill to play and deal a lot of damage and the damage they deal does not contribute to winning the game due to the fact that the gameplay style required by an arty and a waffle forces them to be out of the important fights and those fights are the ones that tip the battle in the favor of winning.

      “Developer 12 (EU): RIP Arty, leave it alone already! if they get hit its their fault, despite how much they deny it, no win ratio can be maintained above 50% by playing pure artillery unlike any other tank and no player exists like that despite claims.”
      so its the good player’s fault that he is forced to fight and when he does he gets slapped by arty and when he camps in arty cover it is his fault to allow his team to lose? the only thing good players complain about are waffles, arty, and 183s. other than that its a great game balanced game i would not even care if i face 15 jagdpanzer e100s because those tanks do tank a good amount of skill to use and for that i do not hate them.

      one thing i always imagined is wargaming could do is take advice from the best players in the game like navi because wargaming are obviously not good players themselves.

  54. They really dont get it. Arty is not op, the problem is not the numbers, the problem is the way it works, the way it prevents players from pushing/flanking

    “if someone get hit its their fault”….fuck you, that argument is so fucking bullshit, arty hits a moving target as easilly as a steady one

    • But it can just as easily help open up a flank by removing the biggest threat as I’ve said before. This goes both ways, and it’s lopsided towards supporting the advance.

      • relying on players in a pub match to do what they supposed to do is like giving Kim Jong-un control of Korea

        • Kim Jong-Un is probably competent enough to be a major player in the cutthroat domestic politics of party control. Whether he’ll keep his seat is irrelevant.

          This is still a team game. Not in the sense of ‘lol you share the same score’ but in the fact that the game is stacked in favor of the team that Cooperatively fights and shares the load.

          • that’s why as a solo player arty is broken. having to rely on anybody to win the game for you is bad. arty forces solo players to lose more.

  55. Indeed, WG is a business, and artillery caters to the weakest part of the crowd. Mentally, at least.
    And so it has a place, a well thought place, as WG proves.
    Yes, providing the inferior groups of the IQ piramid with fun may not be a good thing, but it makes money. And WG had it studied.

  56. I mostly agree with Serb but the thing is most players wanted an arty CAP! personally i never gave a sht about arty nerfs. All i wanted was an arty cap right from the beginning. Do you guys remember when every T10 game had like 5-6arties per side? i do and it was a camping nightmare.

    Now WG was aware of it. Ok it turned arty clickers towards TD’s. SerB was right. But what SerB wanted? to let T10 games be a complete arty fest to the point of people totally stop playing high tier games? or to nerf/cap them? i remember i sold rage my T110E5 after a battle on sand river with 7arties/side. Arty nerf was inevitable and TD’s are not such a big problem IMO not even close to the arty problem. At least you have a fighting chance against TD’s. While against 5 enemy arties you would be blown to kingdom skies the moment you were spotted.

    • They didn’t just nerf arty. They nerfed top-tier (even 8′s; re: Chinese 300mm-pen 122 and T69′s 90mm) MT/HT pen and the fundamental map design leads to claustrophobic, vision-drenched corridors where alpha always wins. (Generically speaking; fewer, safer trades prevail/deter/grind gameplay into dust)

      They nerfed arty out of an expedience unrelated to “whiners” by their own admission but still failed to properly balance TD’s intrinsically from day 1. 8.6 exacerbated the imbalance while being the perfect parking lot for butthurt former clickers.

      This doesn’t exculpate their failures in balancing when you bring up these omissions.

    • To have a hard cap like 2 arty per side would lead to even longer queue for them. I remember in 8.5 arty waited 3 min. for a battle while heavy tanks joined instantly. And that was when hard cap for arty was 5 per side.

      I understand your rage I almost quit the game at that time. The nerf was neccessary and they had to see the problem in their statistics.

  57. The problem with arty is that rather than being what they were meant to be: a counter to TDs, they instead teamed up with the TDs to gang up on the heavy tanks, which were almost universally slower and bigger, and thus easier to hit.

  58. Honestly the TD’s were and some still are unbalanced. Nerfing artillery made it obvious, but that doesn’t mean it was balanced before. Right now we just need the mediums down a notch (perhaps give them AP instead of standard APCR) and fix the odd tanks out (Conquror arty, Tortoise, Obj704 and Waffentrager tier 10 which is way too accurate for having so little time between each shot etc etc)
    After this we just need a working MatchMaker that doesn’t fuck everything up every second game…

  59. Impossible to win more than %50?
    I must have a wild imagination… TD42 on the NA server being exhibit #1.

    I hope he’s talking globally. Because plenty of individuals win in purely artillery. Win criminally, even.

    • I had the same thought as soon as I read that last bit…

      I’ve tooned with TD42. He has arty down to a science, and is perfectly capable of carrying a games in almost any artillery piece (but especially in his CGC.)

      He’s scary ._.

  60. SERB is a genius!!! I can’t believe i am so proud to read what i did about his answer, finally i am 100% certain that he in fact knows and understands the importance of artillery and FINALLY someone says the truth about it !!! FUCK YOU ALL ARTY HATERS and your down-votes on forums !!! ARTY 4 LIFE , even nerfed as it is just for complaining assholes like you!!!

      • i play from tier V to tier X each day the same number of battles in all tank categories INCLUDING artilery!!! so fuck off with your hate and learn to accept that war itself isn’t fair!!! in fact, you and the whole bunch of complaining pussies should be glad arty doesn’t have the REAL rate of fire it had in real life and also, on top of that, be grateful that the power the arty shell in this game has is limited. i die because of arty sometimes but i don’t make a fuss out of it like the new trend is spreading out right now, arty is arty DEAL WITH IT!!!
        i do sometimes play my t2light though for lols to train my t1 crew.

  61. “The moral of the story is: Wargaming people know what they are doing. Usually.”

    It clearly shows that They DON’T !!! (conditioned)

    If they base balance on numbers (numbers never lies – WTF???) they puting arty at exact same level of “usefullnes” as tanks…. and that is awful. In other words it says that arty is equal to the tank, which is not and never was. Arty was and should be SUPPORT weapon. Arty is cheaper, easier, quicker to produce, lesser demend of rare materials, lesser demend on crew abilities and training… and if arty is equal in abilities why even bother to have some stupid expensive overcomplicated tanks? Huh?

    So that is what numbers says…

    If they want equal vehicle ingame (and I think so) then yes numbers never lies and they DO KNOW what they are doing. But logicaly it is BS! Tank and arty are VERY different types of vehicle and that is base for artywhines.

    Horst

    • wut?

      Seriously, what?

      By numbers they mean the statistical performance of the tank ingame.

      And besides “lesser demend on crew abilities and training”?! Have you ever calculated a firing solution without a computer?

      • Yep ballistics are complicated like hell i know (thats why tables were precalculated, also by comps even in WWII era) , but that is few people in crew, lets say gunner + commander… and rest? Also arty IRL is mostly static, so not so high demand on SA, tactics etc. They just arive at ordered spot, calculate ranges and shoot for some hours/days or stay and defend. They basicly dont work in fluid/dynamic enviroment… There are exeptions ofcourse like they have to fight in direct fire mode when under direct attack etc, but that is not main doctrine or engagement style for them.

        Tank crews have to work out ballistics too and even on move sometimes.
        The have to be highly proficient moving ther tank around battlefield on their own and most importantly maintaining very high SA all time. Not even speaking about coms and coordination in combat.

        I think it isn’t same playfield, not even league, it is comletly different sport.

        But WG wiped out that difference between these vehicles by putting them on same playfield and made them competitive…

  62. SS – this is very interesting. But to me it points to one thing. SerB is very obsessed with statistics. Can the Insider provide you with any emails about MatchMaking, and how skill enters the equation when the MM choses the teams? I know WG say that its only tank weight in public, but I feel that there must be a number in there representing player ability somewhere.

  63. I started this game about a year ago, and became obsessed with light tanks and scouting. It was probably one of the worst ways to learn the game, but oh well, I was enjoying myself. Of course, my win rate on lights sucked and only once I started playing heavies and mediums a lot did my win rate and other stats climb to mediocre levels. My opinion as a staunch light tank fan is – anything a light can do a medium can do better.

    It’s kind of gratifying to see that the devs are apparently aware of the plight of light tanks.

    Here’s what I’ve felt as a light tank driver…

    We’ve had two major tank class nerfs since I started playing:

    1. a big artillery nerf
    2. a nerf to TD camouflage abilities – including map changes to marginalize effectiveness of TDs

    Both of them kicked light tank drivers in the balls.

    Light tanks love artillery. We love to sneak into the backfield and kick their teeth in, and we love to provide spotting for them to rain terror on the enemy. Essentially, artillery IS the main gun for a light tank. Screw the T71′s autoloader – the tank’s real gun is the artillery. So nerfing artillery automatically nerfed light tanks’ arsenal as well.

    But the TD nerf was even worse for us. Not because of TD camo values, but because suddenly WG removed all the bushes that TDs might use to do their thing from.

    Guess who else not only likes, but absolutely needs handy bushes to do their jobs?

    Yup – light tanks.

    And it didn’t stop there – entire maps were redesigned. Open models like Steppes and Malinovka were altered or trashed in favor of stupid “World of Tunnels” maps like Severogorsk (oh, how I absolutely loathe and despise Severogorsk), not to mention ruining all the fields of fire on the infamous A1 corner on El Halluf and turning it into a nice warm bunker for brawling heavies and mediums.

    It literally is not possible to do consistent good work in a light tank anymore in my opinion. Lights can still score monster games in the hands of a skilled player – but the only way they accomplish this is by sneaking in opportunistic flanking shots on tanks several tiers higher – leading to big XP scores.

    But that isn’t really being a contributor – that’s just taking advantage of the XP buff lights get. A medium could do the same thing and do a lot more damage to the enemy and would be more likely to survive doing it. Put optics on the medium and it’s also perfectly adequate for the team’s spotting needs in many cases.

    Passive scouting is almost impossible in half the maps as currently constituted and is highly ineffective in the rest of them. Even Malinovka got kicked in the teeth. Active scouting is possible on some maps (I absolutely love Prokhorovka), but highly difficult on many, and impossible on some.

    It’s just something I’ve noticed. Whenever the player base gets vocal and screams for nerfs – light tank drivers get screwed.