13.2.2015

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Friday 13th, spooky!

- individual missions slightly changed the popularity ratios of each vehicle class, but it’s too early to say whether these changes are permanent
- it’s possible that one of the “Prokhorovkas” (Prokhorovka/Fiery Salient) will be removed (the one likely to stay is Fiery Salient)
- Storm confirms that the shells are disappearing after the penetration of the track in some cases, this is not something that needs to be fixed according to him
- after one player complained, Storm checked some bushes in the Airport and Monastery maps and yes, some are bugged (wrong camo values), it will be fixed in the future
- it’s possible that all the limited MM premiums will be removed from the premium shop and ingame store: “Anything can happen. But I won’t confirm anything.”
- HE shell mechanism won’t be reworked to become more complicated as it is now
- HE shell buff? “If we buff tank HE shells, we will also have to buff artillery HE shells and that’s not what we want to do.”


- second KV-1S turret was modelled after archive drawings, they are not publicly available on the internet (WG dug them up)
- Wargaming does not want to transfer parts of server code to the client (to reduce the data transfer load), because it would potentially allow players to create their own servers based on WG code
- the spotting bug video from earlier today was noticed by Wargaming, it will be investigated
- Mantle and Dx12 support in the future? “I cannot say”
- Storm is not aware of an alleged “IS-6″ project with rear turret and 152mm gun
- Storm states that 9.6 freezes (lags) whenever an enemy tank is spotted (model is loaded) are caused by slow HDD loading
- Leopard 1 in HD will come “relatively soon”, it will NOT have the late turret with improved armor (Storm states that the A1 version with anti-HEAT side armor is just heavier without any significant armor improvement, so it wouldn’t be better anyway). There are simply no plans to give Leopard 1 more armor.
- Storm openly admits: the repetitiveness of maps (getting the same map over and over again) is an existing problem, WG will work on it
- historical battles will not bring “hardcore mode” without hitpoints
- WZ-120 and 113 tanks have the same gun but with different properties – this will be fixed during their rework to HD (no details about the fix though)

112 thoughts on “13.2.2015”

    • or better yet:

      - it’s possible that all the limited MM premiums will be removed from the premium shop and ingame store: “Anything can happen. But I won’t confirm anything.”

      here we go again, trick the community into buying more premium tanks..what a bunch of assholes WG and storm are.

      • Nah, not exactly assholes, limited matchmaking tanks really is a problem for developers, for example the IS-6 is really good against most tier 8/9 tanks due too its great armor, but due too the lack of penetration it won’t stand tier 10 tanks.
        This means everytime they bring out new tier 8/9 tanks that DO meet tier 10s, they have to balance it both against all the limited MM tanks and against tier 10 tanks, that really is a pain in the ass, since they shouldn’t get owned by the premiums, but shouldn’t be too overpowered against higher tier tanks.
        I personally would think it’s both a smart and good move if they slowly remove all limited MM tanks from the gift shop, it would mean that several tanks that are just bad against the is-6 due to its good armor, will get better games, and offcourse, if I was a guy at wargaming I would totally have done the same they did with the e-25

      • agreed, both suck EXCEPT for lower tiers. both are a blast at tiers 3 and 4, but SERB will never understand this concept. Mines is another decent map for lower tiers but horrible for tier 10.

        the reason these maps r better at lower tiers is because they r substantially larger!!!!!!!, but trying to squeeze tier 10s on these maps is a joke!

  4. - it’s possible that one of the “Prokhorovkas” (Prokhorovka/Fiery Salient) will be removed (the one likely to stay is Fiery Salient)

    at the current state, they are both just as bad!
    but still one of the 2 only passive scouting maps left!

  6. - Storm openly admits: the repetitiveness of maps (getting the same map over and over again) is an existing problem, WG will work on it

    Thats funny. They deny almost every problem players throw their way just so they can admit it few days/months later.

      • Why cant they grasp we need MORE maps!!!!!!

        One of the reasons i cant play tier 10s constantly is the maps. Tier 3 and 4 is sooooo much more fun because the maps are so much bigger its so much easier to flank and stay hidden.

          • Disagree. More maps is ALWAYS a good thing. In fact, they should bring back all of the maps they’ve removed, unless there’s a significant technical problem. More maps means more variety which is never a bad thing.

            • You don’t get the idea – it doesn’t matter how many maps are in the game, it’s a server problem that it only picks a handful of them for rotation for a certain period of time.

              That’s why you get the same maps over and over again.

              • I understand the problem just fine. I wasn’t responding to that problem.

                I *WAS* responding to Woras’ assertion that we didn’t need more maps, something that I vehemently disagree with.

        • i have asked WG to bring back some of the classic maps on a lower rotation as an optional package all together for players such as the old classic; halluf, severgorsk, sacred valley, tundra, murovanka, pearl river and malinovka many of which were better prior to the chgs.

          Why would WG not do this? Seriously, does it hurt them in some way? It should not affect MM especially if most players, or even half, elect to play games on the classic maps.

          Wouldnt it be fun to have games on these old classic maps, ocassionally?

          WG ruined sevorgorsk so bad it was removed. while i like the larger size of the new murovanka i miss the old magic forest as it was WAY better for scouting i also liked the old el halluf WAY better and it was also WAY better for scouting.

          • most of the new and improved maps r boring CORRIDOR maps with no character. WGs answer to update maps is, INSERT CORRIDOR HERE.

          • I agree on some maps, and disagree on others. Pearl River was absolutely NOT better in the previous version. It was far worse.

            Severogorsk was better, though it could stand a couple of very minor tweaks (i.e. move the caps to the center line and remove the A6 sniper’s nest).

            Also disagree about Murovanka. I like the new version better. The Magic Forest was a death trap, though not always for the defender. Though I will say this. The new forest region doesn’t do all that much for me with those little knolls. I kind of wish that they’d somewhat flatten out those knolls and maybe re-include some more foliage. Not to the density of the old magic forest, but more than it is now.

            I think that WG went overboard on Sacred Valley. Lowering the north road was a good idea, but creating that brawl zone in the NW was unnecessary IMO. I think that if they’d just lowered the old north road, but kept the same general flavor of the old NW area, that would have been sufficient.

        • I agree with the latter point. Maps do feel larger at lower tiers due to lower view ranges. And some maps are ridiculously small at tier 10, such as Mines.

  7. - WZ-120 and 113 tanks have the same gun but with different properties – this will be fixed during their rework to HD (no details about the fix though)

    They probably meant same gun type but different appearance. 113′s gun is almost twice as long as WZ-120′s and is even longer than 121′s gun (which has more pen)

    • I think so, too.

      But what to do now?
      113 with shorter gun would look stupid and WZ-120 with longer gun would look…awkward. I would choose the second ;)

  8. - HE shell buff? “If we buff tank HE shells, we will also have to buff artillery HE shells and that’s not what we want to do.”

    BS, if WG want to buff only tank HE shells then buff tank HE shells only and leave arty HE shells alone. WG is so stupid sometimes…

    • That would require separating tank HE and arty HE, then balancing them so one is better but not significantly better. That’s too much work even for company that isn’t lazy

      • Too much work? WOW! I guess we’re fucking lucky as we are that we have HE shells in the first place, instead of some generic “SHELL” that all tanks fire. In fact, we’re so god damn lucky we have tanks, as in plural, and not a single generic “TANK” to play with. Because you know, that’s too much work.

        Seriously!

      • Tank HE shells and arty HE shells are already separated – they’re fired by different guns and thus, they’re different entities in the game.

        HOWEVER, it would take some actual work on WGs behalf to go over all the tank HE shells, wouldn’t it?

    • HE mechanics work the same for all tanks…and arty.changing mechanics for just one isnt a reasonable thing.
      if they buffed just the pen and dmg of HE shells on tanks then the whole “ruskie bias omg” people would come out in force.

      • We have separate mechanic for AP/APCR, HEAT and HE already. There’s no technical difficulty to have to have two separate mechanics for arty-HE and non-arty-HE.

        The only reason, apart from investing some time into game development (which should be invested regardless as the game needs to be developed or it will stagnate and die), is holding the changes not to confuse the brain dead average player base, the one who shoots the most well armoured part of spaced armour and call it a bug when doing 0 damage, the one who drives into open and calls it a spotting fail when shoot by tanks concealed in vegetation, the one that gets shot in weakspots and call the enemy a cheater. Yes, they would likely fail to comprehend the changes and possibly get confused about what happened when hit by one HE or the other. To them I say fuck you idiots, stop standing in the way of the game progress.

        • Or the one you reports me for hacking, because my luchs shouldn’t reload so fast between shots… HE WAS DRIVING A COVENANTER!!! (Bofors ftw!)

    • That’s true indeed.

      There’s nothing stopping them from introducing 2 different HE shell types, one for arty and second one for non-arty, with different ways they work upon impact compared to the arty-HE, be it delivering more damage upon non penetrating hit or causing more critical damage or having normalisation or whatever the fuck they want … IF they wanted to.

      • Consistency is very important in games. So “No!” to two types of HE shells.

        However, improve HE mechanics and nerf arty shell damage to compensate. That’s a win for everyone, as more damage consistency is good especially in case of artillery.

        • There’s no consistency in the ammo department. Shells have arbitrary pen and dmg values, regardless of their size or historical kinetic energy and/or explosive filler. There were no hit points on real tanks of course, but you can compare shell to shell going by their real data, and see there is no relation to in game performance, even if one shell is clearly more explosive or with higher energy. APCR shells lose their penetration as balancing factor, depending on the tank they were fired from, even if the speed and mass is similar. HESH shells do not work like their real life counterparts whatsoever.

          So apart from the need to actually sit down and get on with it, there’s no technical, logical or even ethical (regarding consistency, call it as you like) reason not to do it.

        • In a previous post I think Storm said that they looked at the “frequent low damage” model vs. the “rare one shot” model. Testers preferred the one shot model.

          It makes sense though….the one shot model fits the classic Skinner box pattern of intermittent rewards. For arty players, it’s the same rush you get by pulling the arm of a slot machine. For arty targets, it’s the rush you get from speeding and *nearly* being caught by the cops.

          • As an arty player, i prefer the “frequent low damage” over the “rare one shot” model. I rather have a bunch of low damage shots, than oneshot a tank then miss all other shots. Before 8.6, artys where “frequent low damage” model, and it was FUN (played Priest and SU-8 a lot before 8.6) The current “rare one shot” model, or better call it “you barely would hit anything” is NOT fun. Not for arty players, and not for arty targets either. The only arty after 8.6 that is close to the “frequent low damage” model is the leFH18B2, but only in tier 7 battles, in tier 5 battles it becomes too OP against tier 3 tanks. I can’t understand why WG did not do anything with arty since 8.6, they don’t playing their own game???

  9. - Wargaming does not want to transfer parts of server code to the client (to reduce the data transfer load), because it would potentially allow players to create their own servers based on WG code

    Yeah.. because giving the Friends List and Blacklist unlimited entries by making it Client sided will cause players to create their own servers… suuuuuure thing.

    - Leopard 1 in HD will come “relatively soon”, it will NOT have the late turret with improved armor (Storm states that the A1 version with anti-HEAT side armor is just heavier without any significant armor improvement, so it wouldn’t be better anyway). There are simply no plans to give Leopard 1 more armor.

    We want the A3 turret… give us the A3 turret. There’s no game-breaking feature built into it.. it’s just got a spaced wedge-shaped mantlet and a little more room inside.

    • In WG defense, there are a lot of companies that would like to build a WoT clone on the cheap. Hell, AW is a WoT clone with a heavy $$$$$ investment. Any info that they provide in the client is helping these people, so no.

        • There’s a difference between “welcoming” competition and handing them over portions of your source code.

        • Lol I thought exactly the same… Right after AW first gameplay videos appeared, WG mysteriously started to ask for players opinions, and listen some suggestions every now and then. Really odd from the guys that brought the “how terrible” to every comment… I only hope Obsidian do things properly and kick this communist shitty game’s ass…

    • Moving functionality from server to client provides more opportunity for hacking.

      No thanks.

  10. Q&A of 10 Feb 2015: – Storm states that before 9.6, ALL bushes on all maps were checked for errors – only the Prokhorovka ones were bugged

    Q&A of 13 Feb 2015: – after one player complained, Storm checked some bushes in the Airport and Monastery maps and yes, some are bugged (wrong camo values), it will be fixed in the future

    Am I crazy?

    • ALL bushes on all maps were checked for errors – only the Prokhorovka ones were bugged

      … signed, the tank hitbox QA guy.

      • Maybe the QA engineer responsible for the hitboxes and Storm are the same person. Storm also checked personally the camo factor on Airfield.

        All this just shows how serious you can take their answers.

    • Working as intended. They were checked by releasing them to the public. Now they will try to fix them in the next patch and fix in the next after that.

    • You? Crazy? Nope. It’s just Storm either being a massively clueless chickenbrain or a boss that doesn’t get told important info by his underlings.

    • It’s possible something changed on those maps or otherwise changed in 9.6 bugged those bushes and they were fine when they were tested in what ever previous build or patch that was.

  11. “- Storm openly admits: the repetitiveness of maps (getting the same map over and over again) is an existing problem, WG will work on it”

    6 months ago it was conspiracy according to Storm…

    • I just wait for the day they find and confirm a bug in the RNG methode what was responsible for all these 15:3 / 3:15 matches in the recent past.

  12. - Storm states that 9.6 freezes (lags) whenever an enemy tank is spotted (model is loaded) are caused by slow HDD loading

    Well, load the skin into ram, nothing is better than to have 4gb of free ram while Wot is loading skin from hdd. Those on calculators will load from hdd. Problem solved. 1 model is around 30mb? -> 900mb only for skins Im all happy to provide that

    Oh wait … (insert russian calculator players fact)

    • Still, engine could use very lowres textures for initial load and grab the hires ones from the hdd once it actualy needs em. Who cares if the tank will look fugly for half a second. Getting rid of lag should have priority.

      • Maybe they don’t want to preload them in preparation to fog of war (you don’t know the enemy tanks until they are spotted). If textures are preloaded, a mod could easily report what you’re up against.

  13. quote: “Storm states that 9.6 freezes (lags) whenever an enemy tank is spotted (model is loaded) are caused by slow HDD loading”

    soviet coders at it again ..
    how hard is it to pre-load 30 tank textures into RAM, or directly into VRAM for those who have enough of it, before the battle starts? many of which are the same tank

      • Russia is a fucking backward country. Backward and brainwashed people and society what would be conasidered as mentaly disabled in the western world. No wonder the germans assumed by dafault that many of the eastern people were “disabled”. Sorry no offense.

  14. - Storm confirms that the shells are disappearing after the penetration of the track in some cases, this is not something that needs to be fixed according to him

    Um..isn’t it ? Well, fine, lets just not fix anything ever, following that sense. Pfff..development is for peasants, amirite?
    …

    I really don;’t have anything positive to say about WG at this point, I’m just so bored..And it’s not even their fault…At some point, I just stopped caring completely.No point in saying anything…yet I keep spamming the comments..The mysteries of life.

    I also started using so much gold ammo whenever I play WoT now and then.

  15. I really hope WG will not nerf 113 gun. The dpm is excellent for heavy and speed is nice but not much else. I like the tank because it is challenging to play well, but any nerf to gun might render it completely useless.

    • Why would they nerf 113 it’s sux anyway it burns every 3-4 game when they hit your lower plate from side you lose ammo all the time.
      They need to buff this tank the only good thing is the gun nothing else.

  16. “WZ-120 and 113 tanks have the same gun but with different properties – this will be fixed during their rework to HD (no details about the fix though)”

    and the maus still get worse dpm than the E100 (with the stock gun). :(
    Or will they nerf the stock E100 when they release the HD model ? o_O

  17. Interessting:

    “- after one player complained, Storm checked some bushes in the Airport and Monastery maps and yes, some are bugged (wrong camo values), it will be fixed in the future”

    Here some quotes few days ago …..

    10.02.2015:
    “- Storm states that before 9.6, ALL bushes on all maps were checked for errors – only the
    Prokhorovka ones were bugged”

    WG checked ALL BUSHES very well. GJ.

    11.02.2015
    “- Storm personally checked the camo factor of the Airfield map bushes, they are correct”

    Correct or bugged, Storm tell me pls. :)

  18. “Wargaming does not want to transfer parts of server code to the client (to reduce the data transfer load), because it would potentially allow players to create their own servers based on WG code”

    Just roflmao :D
    If someone wants to do it, they could do it right now, it wouldn’t be pretty though (half of the stuff wouldn’t even work right). Because the basics aren’t that hard, the hard part is to get the simulation stuff as close as possible to the original servers and thats when things fail.

    • The heart of WoT is the matchmaker. That is the one they are protecting at all costs. The concept is simple but making one is fiendishly complex.

  19. since the 9.6 patch I don’t have the repetitive map problem anymore, I don’t knowif they solved the problem or is it just me being lucky.
    I used to have the same map up to 3 in a raw and about 4 from 7 maps for many nights. It was severe.

  20. - Storm states that 9.6 freezes (lags) whenever an enemy tank is spotted (model is loaded) are caused by slow HDD loading

    I thought computers got RAM ?
    Shouldn’t that stuff load on game start? That’s why there is even a counter… so slow junk PC’s got time to load – everything…?
    But still the game waits to load necessary models…. till you spot them!? … why?

    … let me think of other games i ever had this issue with (= loading game assets DURING fights) … cant think of any.

    Its just a really bad excuse.

    (UNLESS your 5yrs+ old Laptop HDD does go to energy saving mode after 1minute… which still should work around that with RAM…< still… "calculator kids" should be punished.)

    … i bet they also blame the broken spotting system on: mods/lags/HDD/ISP… Obama? what ever…

    Cause you know: if your pc works fine with wot… and you dont have that issues… and than a patch comes out and you got issues right after… its YOUR fault :) [as intended]

  21. ps. a hint.
    i got my windows on 1st HDD. games on 2nd HDD and safety copy on 3rd HDD…
    if you want use windows normal – while games install ……or the other way around… and play – while windows does jack….
    but still the game performance doesn’t increase… it just avoids problems DURING heavy loads (unlike if you just had one HDD)
    - but its not like you get +20% fps or such. hell no.

    not even using SSD… (tried that on my Win7)
    yes your windows loads faster… games as well… and than guess what – the shit is in RAM and the SSD goes back to sleep… so you don’t stare on a 11s counter – but a 14s counter on match start :)

    Thats so useful… let me get my wallet and literally pay 4x $$$ for that! ;)

    SSD is fancy stuff if you got realllly no space for a 2nd HDD – to much money – or work professional with loads of loading saving (video rendering and such)…
    but for the average gamer, its nothing more than a useless toy.

    • SSD goes to sleep if you put manually such short time. It usually is 30 minutes.
      And what? Doesnt load faster than HDD?
      Bitch please – HDD shows countdown already, while SSD loads you before countdown.

      • My piss-poor HDD that already corrupted on me once loads the battle before countdown as well.
        Except for the first 1 or 2 battles I play in a session, which take way longer after the game loaded up all most of its assets.

      • Does it matter in any way shape or form for the game ?
        I said its faster – but USELESS speed…

        great now you wait for the counter to start… WHAT A BENEFIT :D

        And that for i payed 2x the money for 1/2 of the space… (which adds to 4x cost per GB)

  22. “- Storm states that 9.6 freezes (lags) whenever an enemy tank is spotted (model is loaded) are caused by slow HDD loading”
    - Bullshit I have only SSDs and I still experiance this shot freeze some times when enemy is spotted. Ahaha russian noobs.

  23. So WG changed the strategy of messing up the collision model to bush problems? Looks like they intentionally doing this so they have excuse that they are working something for the next patch and increase the numbers for patch notes. So for 9.7, collision model for mountains will arise so they could fix it for 9.8?

  24. - Leopard 1 in HD will come “relatively soon”

    What is the timeframe for Wargaming’s “relatively soon” again? Maybe even 9.7 already?
    My Leopard 1 is ready!

  25. “Storm confirms that the shells are disappearing after the penetration of the track in some cases, this is not something that needs to be fixed according to him”

    What? Sometimes I must question what are they smoking down there at Wargaming.They don’t actually think this is a problem? Great example of how broken some shit in this game is, auto-bounce is one of them. If Wargaming got off their arses to fix some of this WOT would be a much better game and far less rage inducing.

    • Hmm, if the shell pen the track it whould continue to go into the hull and make dmg, if the shell has enough pen. No wonder track dmg is so inconsistent.

    • Good idea. so ppl that payed 100-200 $ for a AUS_J now threw its money on nothing.

      Scarring off paying gamers… hmmm wg sure will fix that in 9.7 :)