9.6 Stream Q&A

Hello everyone,

last night, a stream took place on RU server – the topic was patch 9.6. Participating were various developers: Yuri “HuKoguM” Kuryavy, Aleksei “Inaki” Ilyin and Roman “Riot_Guy” Tabolin. It was not terribly informative, but here’s the transcript, courtesy of VK Ekspress.

- the map Mines was imbalanced in favour of one base, it was slightly reworked in 9.6 with the specific goal of balancing the chance of both teams to capture the mountain
- in a few patches, Prokhorovka will be reworked. The mountain will be moved and one other part will be opened
- air strike and artillery strike SH consumables were implemented to “get rid of total defense tactic”
- there are many new features planned for strongholds, including the bunker consumables
- TD viewrange nerf is supposed to improve the battle dynamics and “teach TD’s to move”
- not all developers finished the StuG missions yet, they have a lot of work
- unlike Prokhorovka, the “island” on Fiery Salient was not changed
- there’s a new “Wargaming TV” project on RU server, aimed at popularizing the “WG Stream” mod, there will be various e-sports streams on it and the mod will have a window, in which various bonus codes will appear
- chat system update is just the first part of the “Chat 2.0″ system – in the future, it will be possible to chat amongst different Wargaming games, it will be also possible to chat with players outside of the game and other features

63 thoughts on “9.6 Stream Q&A

  1. “- TD viewrange nerf is supposed to improve the battle dynamics and “teach TD’s to move” ”

    TDs will not move if they can’t see shit. Why the fuck should I move now – to risk getting outspotted by the most blind heavy and be blasted to bits?

    Poor players in TDs would have camped uselessly (like base camping) anyhow, since they don’t know shit no. 1 about camo or view range mechanics
    Good players in TDs will now be FORCED to camp and sit behind their teams. And if their teams won’t move, well tough luck, now you can’t even spot for your idiots.

    It will be really interesting to see where exactly you can stay behind your team – when your team camps behind arties.

    Fucking brainless nerf. As almost any change in WoT, it’s in complete contradiction with its intended effects.

    • Dunno, i allways played my TDs actively – start with some 2nd line sniping, then later eventually move to 1st line and play pseudo-med, so this nerf really don’t forces me to do anything unusual. (i admit, i never played british ATs or T28/T95)

      And let’s face it – TD’s don’t need that much viewrange – “sniper” TDs allways can let someone spot for them, while “brawler” TDs typically fight at short ranges anyway. And you don’t spearhead attack with your TD, so when you come to action battlelines are usually drawn allready and most enemies spotted anyways…

      And if nobody from your team spots? Well yeah, that happens, but that’s problem with players, not game mechanics. in WoW you too wouldn’t complain about Hunter not being able to heal if your Raid healer sucks, would you?

      • ” “sniper” TDs allways can let someone spot for them”

        No thank you. I’d rather not be a kiddie that has to depend on others, thank you very much.
        Being dependent on others = being weak.

        Not to mention the much lower XP you would gain by letting others spot for you all the time.

        inb4 2nd line sniping does no longer exist in WoT

        • “inb4 2nd line sniping does no longer exist in WoT”

          1) explain to me what the hell “inb4″ means, maybe it changes meaning of whole rest of your sentence. Sadly i don’t speak leetspeek or any other profigamer’s jibberjabber.

          2) so how exactly would you call keeping some distance behind 1st line and shooting over heavy’s shoulder while being undetecded if not 2nd line sniping?

          “No thank you. I’d rather not be a kiddie that has to depend on others, thank you very much.
          Being dependent on others = being weak. ”

          So you say you rather be statpadding than cooperating with your team?

          Say what you want, but TDs with view range in some cases exceding scouts are just plain OP. Wafflethrower E100 with its 420m + bino in big enough bush can see enemy scout much sooner than the scout sees him, even though it has virtually no camo of its own to speak of.

          Don’t get me wrong, i love TDs, but i rarely camp (it might be rewarding stats-wise, but it’s just so damn boring…) and i can see the imbalance here – you can’t just have scout’s viewrange AND firepower exceeding any other vehicle in the game in one package., those are two major advantages you just can’t balance by nerfing armor and/or mobility.

      • I haven’t played nearly as much since 9.5 dropped – in part due to the much increased number of *heavies* camping behind my TDs!

        Call it poor players (it is) – or just idiots afraid of having their paint scratched – or maybe just AFKers who think they’re being clever by appearing to “protect” the much more vulnerable (armor-wise) tank destroyer, but when the team mechanics break down to such a degree, there really isn’t much of a “game” anymore. Lowering the view range of a TD is not going to help.

    • TDs will not move if they can’t see shit. Why the fuck should I move now – to risk getting outspotted by the most blind heavy and be blasted to bits?

      Did you ever hear of WASD keys ? They let you move forward to support your team.

    • mostly this
      -yolorushing, your camo is on the move, their camo is static, your viewrange wont help, high chances of getting hit first
      -camping, your camo is static, their camo is on the move and your viewrange nerf is compensated by your binocs, high chances of hit first.

    • Poor players will be hurt more than good ones. But then poor players are poor, view range or not. Poor players would do their same thing, they are poor and as you said don’t know about view range and camo, so this change wont affect them since they don’t even know about it.
      Good players already use their team to spot for them. This does prevent certain TDS from being to good offensively because they cant spot for themselves and deal loads of damage. They also will have less of an advantage at camping without spotters, as they can’t see as far and thus are less effective as a lone unit.(AKA op )
      The whole point of this change is to give attacking forces an easier time attacking a TD, anyone who plays tier 9 and 10 games knows the difficulty in attacking well placed TDS in anything. For the most part the TD has better view range, camo, cover, and firepower, which offers an extreme advantage in a defensive position.

      Yes it means you can’t go spot for yourself in a TD, but neither can Arty or uber slow tanks. Its a team game, if you want to spot your own shots drive a sniper medium/support heavy. TDS still have the alpha and first strike advantage, so you can still get free shots in, but the moment you fire your probably spotted and vulnerable.

      • “Good players already use their team to spot for them.”

        Well, apparently except for mr. Fedaykin89 here, who sees himself as the only formidable and reliable force on his side of the barricade…

        And here i was thinking that Unicums are Unicums mostly because they can generally think ahead and more tactically than your typical good (green) player…

        Well most of them are, i still believe, but looks like not all of them…

  2. “in a few patches, Prokhorovka will be reworked”

    Oh shit. It’s THE map to do LT-15 on, and one of the few where it’s actually possible. I’m rather worried that this will soon no longer be the case. Gotta rush.

    • Redshire can be pretty much on par with it too if you know the places to go. But yeh, they really are just shitting on anything that doesn’t have armor with these changes

    • i did LT-15 for T28c on Redshire, if you know what to do, you can spot well on at least 5-6 maps… and, just to make it clear, Prokhorovka and Malinovka will be still best maps for spoting, but LT-15 requirements are not high enough to need just (!) those 2 maps…

    • You can easily do the LT-15 mission on any attack/defence map so I suggest you, or anyone else struggling, turns that option on; got mine with ease on Karelia attacking.

      As for the prok changes, good move, its a shit campfest map atm.

  3. “- TD viewrange nerf is supposed to improve the battle dynamics and “teach TD’s to move””

    Uhhh.

    The point of TDs is that they’re only supposed to move when they have to. They’re the “sniper” class- camp, make precision long range shots of opportunity, move when necessary. Changing up their viewrange to force them to move completely breaks the intended purpose of the class and skews the game even further in favor of heavy tanks, since heavies have more armor (usually) more HP (always) and harder hitting guns (sometimes). TDs are meant to stay hidden so they don’t get shot. If they have to move around it completely destroys their camo advantage and exposes them to enemy fire since of course it’s almost impossible for them to fire effectively on the move.

    This is just straight up ineptitude.

    • Dont play td then…..ppl cry before spg nerf …..and now we have tons of spg’s ingame again……i play with blind td’s ( most russian td have low viewrange ) …….. Tell me ? How i for example now 1 vs 1 kill RHM , he have better viewrange than any tier 8 tank except scouts and huge camo + god gunp0

      • Ruski TDs have poor view range because they carry HUGE guns to compensate (except for the SU-85, which is lackluster as all hell).

        The first one that had damn good view range was the 704 – but that’s because initially it was the end of the line.

        Oh, and amongst the TDs of all nations, RU ones tend to have the most effective armor (notable exception – JP2) up to Tier X.

        • Jagtpanther has more effective overall armour than the SU-152 and SU100m1 as well. ( ISU only has a good mantlet, S100M1 has a barely passable superstructure )

          Hetzer has way better armour than the SU-85B of course but a worse gun and viewrange….

          The tier 10 of the germans has better overall armour than the SU-268 albeit it’s weakspot is way bigger, though.

    • To all you TD nerf whiners: It is very clear that you are indeed the type of bush camping solitary player you are being mocked as. I am having interesting news for you: A TD is *not* meant to sit in the very rear of the map and snipe/kill enemy tanks at max. render range. It is meant to work together with other tanks and have them spot for it! That is because WoT is something that apparently has completely slipped from your attention: A *team* game!

      Over are the days when a fkn TD in some fkn bush can snipe my med to death while I am desperately trying to locate it. That’s no nerf, that’s called balancing.

      Btw, I have never missed a huge view range on my TDs and heavies, because the way I play I mainly rely on scouts and meds at advanced positions, spotting enemy tanks. Here is where the huge pen and (in most cases) good accuracy of high tier TD guns comes into play, when you can snipe tanks other team members have spotted.

      Now stop your g’dam, moronic whine already.

      • There is one part you haven’t covered: WHY the TDs should play for the team, not only for themselves.
        So: if you are the scumbag TD that waits in a bush until all his team is dead, now you will be able to do exactly shit. Next game, go with the team and stay just a bit back, not the way that 90% of fucker campers act now (like a fixed emplacement: go to a bush, kill all the guys that are actualy trying to play something else than an idiot camper game).

  4. Lol TD players wining. You only have a better gun (some exceptions), better camo and are often more mobile than heavies but no, you want better view range as well. Might as well give you more hit points so you can camp in your bush mawr!

    • - fixed gun (no turret)
      - lowest HP except for LTs
      - negligible armor
      - meh mobility

      All of that is supposed to be compensated by a damn good gun and good camo.
      The guns aren’t really all that much AND camo is now an irrelevant factor, since camo sniping is mostly impossible.

  5. TDs were already in a very bad position, especially the turretless ones

    camo after shooting nerf
    bush removal
    corridor maps
    add of new LTs (fast tanks and mobility counter TDs hard way)

    most of the tds are made for camping. this can sound bad, but they really are. u are punished for trying to play in a agresive way

    lets say “Nashor”: no armor at all, few hps, very bad mobility, no turret, small shooting arc. any enemy that get close to u, mean u are dead, and if u are spotted u are already half dead

    if u see any unicum stream, they dont play TDs anymore, specially because they cannot carry in a TD like they do in a medium or heavy

    so nerf even more TDs so nobody play them

    • That’s their plan, they want to nerf TDs so hard that no one plays them.

      Oh, except the most powerful ones, found at Tier X, like Obj. 263, Jag E-100, FV 183, WTF E-100, T110E3.
      You know, the “manly men’s” TDs, that are not forced to “bush kemp like cowards” (or whatever idiotic mentality the playerbase has these days)

      RIP smart, view & camo based gameplay

      But hey, as long as there are complete shitlords that actually believe that TDs are no different than clickers… the idiots must be catered to, always!

      • Thats why you stick with a platoon so they can help you… Or just stick with the friendlies.

  6. I think WG is confusing the concept of NEW with CHANGING OLD S**T.

    Not only that there is no new content, but older maps are removed, or not available in Random Battles.

    Each patch at least one map is changed, even several times. Why cant you balance a map and leave be, then create something new? I cant belive they spent the effort to make map clones. There are 3 Fking Ruinberg maps (Ruiberg, Ruinberg on fire and snow ruinberg), 2 Himellsdorf, 2 Prokhorovka…

    And still wG is wasting time with rather boring and limited game mods like football, racing and this 8 Bit stuff. At least leave it in the game, dont remove it after some time.

    And what about HD models? I use lowest settings anyway. And I can hardly notice the diference in these HD models. Often they are far away or you just shoot the red siluete (or green siluete if you are an A-hole)

    The game is totaly diferent in High settings and in Low setings. In high settings you have dust, grass, fog and all kind of effects that makes aiming and shooting harder. If you look at streams, nobody is using highest settings just for that reason. This should not affect the gameplay. And yes I do have an I7 with GTX660 OC and 8GB Ram, so that is not a potato.

    After 2 years now, I finished grinding 95% of tier 10 tanks, I play arty now because I have nothing left to grind. There is no goal left, and the game is getting borring.

    Personal Missions are verry bad – games are now chaotic. Noobs playing bad, and good players doing stupid things for missions. There is no gradual increase in dificulty, and some missions are verry dependent on RNG or team. How am I to block 10.000 dmg ? In order to do 10.000 blocking + Damage you must play tier 9 or 10. People are not idiots at this tier.
    it would have been so easy to have a mission similar to WZ 111. For light tanks, do 1.000.000 Total spoting damage, in 15 steps. Mediums do 1.000.000 dmg and 1.000 critical hits.
    Heavies 1.000.000 and 10.000 blocking dmg DMG, etc etc etc.
    Keep it simple and do things that the tank should do to win a game – Deal damage.
    Or at least remove some idiotic missions like setting an enemy on fire or capturing a base, witch are the most anoying missions in the game.

    Make some missions for lower tiers or for beginers. I would love to do some missions with some low tiers.

    Remove the 1 shot ability from arties. even when I play with arty and hit a tier 8-9-10 for 75%-100% of its health i feel bad, just because he was in a slow tank and did not have time to get in cover.

    Make a video on how to avoid arty fire – people dont realise it but when you play arty you know where arty cannot shoot and you can clearly see how to move so you dont get a direct hit. I rarely get hit by arty beacause i play arty and know where it is safe or low chace to get hit.

    Everybody buys gold ammo with credits, so just remove that gold. Make a compromise on gold ammo, more pen with less damage, higher reload, increase decrese accuracy – I dont mind if it is not historical or like real life. Let’s face it, nothing is real about the game. GTA 3 has better destruction transiions that this game.

    Try to make MM take into acount the player efficiency. A game with 65%-35% is not fun for either of the teams and completing a mission is almost imposible.

  7. Pingback: Otázky a odpovědi vývojářů k aktualizaci 9.6

  8. not all developers finished the StuG missions yet, they have a lot of work

    Bollocks, they’re stuck on capping missions! :D

      • One good thing about acc nerf – I did my HT15 mission in first try when half of enemy team tried to snipe command coppola in my E75 and i picked up 6k blocked by armor.

        • I’d say HT-15 mission is pretty easy, especially if you have german high-tier heavy tanks laying around.

          Did the StuG IV HT mission twice with not much trouble in mah E100 :D

          • The thing is i didn’t even try to do the mission, just wanted to check that acc nerf and jumped in to a quick game in E75 because i now that people like to shoot its turret weak spots.

  9. Campo-rhovka rework?

    Finaly …the map which needed this the most!

    No sarcadm here.
    Its a shit boring map on which i rather quit than play.

  10. Yes, the Nashorn is a prime example of a proper TD that will be harmed by this nerf. It’s a great vehicle to play, one of my favourites, but the moment I am spotted, my armour will not save me. So it’s important to stay under cover, or have cover nearby. Viewrange is the saving grace of the vehicle. It will be interesting to see how it plays under the new patch.

  11. “TD viewrange nerf is supposed to improve the battle dynamics and “teach TD’s to move””

    Hahaha. Good luck with that when driving paper TD’s.

    For me this will just increase camping. At least I have binoculars and camo net on most of my paper td’s so at least I can compensate the nerfed viewrange. That means I have to camp.
    I will definitely not rush with a paper TD, that gets oneshotted immediately when spotted.

  12. 9.6 is good, no more snapshots bullshit. Now positioning, aim time and accuracy will matter more. Bye bye all tomato snapshotters in derp tanks like is6, is3, e75, etc. Oh it will be so fune killing noobs now, just stand in the open and laugh at them while they bounce like suckers aahaha just like in the old days. So funny when fully is3 and is6 just bounce you side of tiger II at 50 meters ahaha.

    • IS-3 and E 75 have rather accurate guns (0.4 and 0.38 accuracy).

      I played some games today and I think the accuracy change is barely noticeable (read: not at all noticeable)

  13. Its good that TDs have lower view range so you can out snipe them while they camp and or make them move closer and hence can be flanked easier. It was so funne, me and a amx 13 90 just flanked a WT auf Pz and he couldnt do anything. He couldnt see us so he went closer and we raped him. Ahaha so fun to finaly get revenge against these invisiderpers.

    Pls WG make me face fedaykin in random battel!!111

  14. This will be great!
    All the light tanks and mediums will become op, then in a patch or two they will nerf them.

    Welcome to the great world of NERFS!
    Oh wait they have a new line of tanks for you to grind and spend money on.
    Then after a bit they will NERF them also!

  15. “TD viewrange nerf is supposed to improve the battle dynamics and “teach TD’s to move”

    That’s fine for mobile TD’s who shouldn’t really be camping anyway e.g. StuG, Su-122-44 etc, but what are slower TD’s meant to do? My Ferdinand takes 3 years to move across the map (so to speak :P) so moving very far is not a viable option to begin with. Also heavy TD’s generally like to keep opponents at a distance due to their poor turn-rate, this nerf is just going to screw them over.

  16. abt the chat sys, I still don’t get why the WG buffons still refused to hook up WoT to Steam. They get the bonus exposure, to boot. And it will bring a fresh influx of ppl with more balls, expecially those from a background of TF2/CSGO (like me) who likes to play offense hard.

    camping is boring.