On introducing new premium tanks

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Hello everyone,

you might have noticed the new poll on the main FTR page, regarding the premium vehicles (if you haven’t voted yet, cast your vote, please). This poll is there for a reason actually. Last night I had an interesting chat, was also reading some articles, looking through some books and realized, how tough it is actually to come up with a decent premium tank. There are some pretty strict categories and conditions to follow, when you make such a proposal. This can be very clearly seen on the case of the American premium tank destroyer.

Not that Wargaming drops historical requirements the lower you go by tiers, but first and foremost, I think it’s obvious that tier 8 premium tanks are the most “watched” tanks in World of Tanks. For example, recently (on 8.11 test), the shape of Type 59 armor was changed. It was changed in a completly insignificant way (the angle changed by half a degree or so, resulting in a few milimeters of shift), but there have already been voices saying “Oh, you changed Type 59, will there be a compensation?”

Changing hightier premium characteristics later on is something Wargaming wants to avoid at all costs (look at the Superpershing mess not so long ago), that in best case can annoy players, in worst case it can cause significant damage to the game economy (gold gets reimbursed, players suddenly have free gold, resulting in some sort of WoT inflation equivalent and monetary losses for Wargaming). Currently, the Jagdtiger 88 doesn’t have historically correct speed (and LFP thickness if I recall correctly), but the shape is alright and so Wargaming decided not to touch the vehicle in order to avoid this stuff.

So, what are the hightier premium requirements, the way I understand it?

- obviously, it must be a historical and should be a documented vehicle

Nope, no Krokodils allowed. This might not seem like an issue, but it’s difficult to build a tank around one sentence in one book. These paper-ish projects noone knows are generally problematic and Wargaming seems to prefer real (prototype-built, described) vehicles to the complete paper variants.

- it should be a prototype or a paper project, mass-produced vehicles are not desired

This one might sound obvious too, but anyway: putting mass-produced vehicles on premium spots can create a nasty backlash amongst the community. At one point, it was (falsely) assumed (a long time ago) that the Firefly would come as a premium vehicle. Naturally, the response was overwhelmingly negative (“WG wants to make money on popular vehicles”) – it goes with the fact that most mass-produced vehicles are “popular”. This obviously can be bent too, but for US tank destroyers for example, it means putting (a) Hellcat on premium spot wouldn’t be a brilliant idea. There are however mass-produced vehicles, that don’t fit anywhere in a regular tree (ASU series, M56 Scorpion), so I wouldn’t consider this rule unbreakable

- the vehicle shouldn’t fit a regular tree

This is a very, very strong rule in my opinion. You see, there are tons of candidates for tons of premium spots. Theoretically. The thing is, this rule sort of interferes in many cases. To fit a regular tree means to actually have module options. Specifically, this goes for turrets and guns (hulls too to a degree). This sort of scraps a lot of options. Take the American T53 GMC (90mm AA gun on a Sherman chassis) for example. I thought it would be a great candidate, but I recently learned it has option – various turret configuration. Well, there goes the possibility to make it a premium. The same thing applies for the T78 tank destroyer project (Chaffee hull, mated with a M36 turret) to an extent. Another way of “not fitting” in a tree would be the time factor: some vehicles are simply “not right” for their tiers even in the game (the Hetzer precedes the StuG, despite historically it was a later project), these do make good candidates for premium spots, simply because they can’t be put in any serious branch.

- it shouldn’t be a copycat of an already existing vehicle

While more vehicles are good in general (the more the merrier), it shouldn’t be a carbon copy of a vehicle, that already exists in the game. Chieftain recently mentioned a Hellcat project, where the 90mm gun was installed in the original Hellcat turret. Apparently, it was just a paper proposal somewhere, but do we really need two identical Hellcats? It’s obvious this rule is not very strong, considering the fact Wargaming is considering adding YET ANOTHER T-54 (the “light”) version into the game. Or the three T-44′s (T-44, T-44-85, T-44-122). Or the various Type 59 variants. Etc.

- it shouldn’t be butt-ugly

Sounds weird? But “factor of cool” sells. Come on, who of you would buy a Bob Semple tank, even if it did fit WoT? Well… I guess I would… but anyway :)

So, what does this all mean for US tank destroyers for example? We sort of discarded various very paper fantasies (“T28″ variants), vehicles, that could be used in regular branch (T53, T78), copycats (90mm Hellcat), vehicles noone knows anything about apart from the fact they existed (again, 90mm Hellcat project), so what is left for the US tank destroyer branch?

The M56 Scorpion.

M56_at_AAF_Tank_Museum

Count with me.

- it existed
- it looks cool and is popular
- it was mass-produced (eg. no paper BS, photos – even vehicles themselves – exist)
- it actually fought
- it doesn’t fit any line (it’s too new for its possible tier)
- it doesn’t have any options regarding alternative turrets/modules

On the downside, it literally has zero armor (like, really – zero) and the gun properties are a bit odd too, but I think there is a way around that using the Japanese tests for the M36 guns. All in all, I think this is possibly the best US TD candidate there is to date and certainly the coolest :)

116 thoughts on “On introducing new premium tanks”

  1. “For example, recently (on 8.11 test), the shape of Type 59 armor was changed. It was changed in a completly insignificant way (the angle changed by half a degree or so, resulting in a few milimeters of shift), but there have already been voices saying “Oh, you changed Type 59, will there be a compensation?””

    This is the number one thing I absolutely hate about current player community. Not having fun unless someone serves them everything – and then more. They want all the tanks, 7 skill crews, unlimited gold and silver, all of that without work. Only to take the 2-3 OP vehicles out, statpad like hell and let the rest – virtually – rust in their garages.

    Now excuse me while I go to listen to some Faithless depicting precisely this.

    • *They want all the tanks, 7 skill crews,*

      I wish… My top skill crew is the ELC Commander and Driver. After over 3 k battles in it with advanced training option turned on they are at 70-80% in their 5-th skills. I do think the crew grind is a bit…. excessive. Then again, with a prem account (that i dont have) it would prolly be a lot more by now.

      I have 60% winrate in it. I foucsed a lot on that tank just to get the crew their skills. With the current missions it would speed up a lot for the rest of the skills. Unfortunately i have switched the strategy from crew grinding into tank grinding so i have acces to more stuff in the trees in case of any super duper heavy grind missions again, read like the IS-6 mission.

      The crew grind has become easier lately with the missions, if you know how to play a light tank properly you will end up in top 3 XP gainers most of the time.

      • I prefer to see how I improve in the game, reaching some level of play (and cooperation in terms of CW/platoons/team battles) deemed “good”, than to pretend I am the best just because I have better gear than everyone else. That’s the point of my post – I play for fun all the time, but it’s really easy to see that the people whining for reward for every minor thing don’t – they want free stuff without any effort, which is a really warped view of “fun”.

      • Its just lighter T-54 with better mobility, its not really LT-like and devs said that no +tier 6 LTs or arties.

                • as long as the thinner armour makes it not OP for average players I dont see the problem, almost all tanks are ‘OP’ in unicum hands, but you will rarely meet unicums anyway so its not a big deal. Also 180mm turret wont bounce crap in T8.

              • Nah, I’m pretty sure they’ll find a way to make gun handling even worse than on the Type 59.

            • Shame about the T-44-85, if they got Serb to “How terrible” the UP whiners on it’s first iteration we probably would have it by now :/ . All those tier 10 medium crews won’t train themselves (well unless you want to spend your time catching tier 10 TD shells).

          • They’ve shelved the T-44-85 for the moment; it’s fate is uncertain. The premium Russian medium will be a lighter variant of the T-54. Not a light tank but a T-54 that weighs less (less armor, faster).

      • Germany have 2 premium medium tanks. Why the fuck would they need another one? They have a tier 8 heavy and TD, a tier 7 TD and Medium, a tier 5 medium and more…. why another medium?

        • NONE OF YOU CAN MAKE ME SHUT UP, ILL CONQUER THE UNIVERSE MHUAHAHAHAH!

          on a serious note, youre right, too many german tanks…. Then i hope WG will introduce a tier VIII british premium MT :D

          EDIT: btw, how can i change my profile picture? in “edit my profile” there is no such thing

          • No such thing as too many German tanks, they had more prototypes, in development, on paper and mass produced tanks than any other nation.

      • It only has four crewmen, which makes it a poor candidate for a Premium TD. Without a Radioman and/or an extra loader, it loses value as a crew trainer. You don’t discuss it, but I bet a good crew trainer is likely a premium tank requirement.

    • I’m saying around 7, or even 6 with the paper armour, especially if the gun is the same as M36′s. Oh and it’s be kinda fast, so it would rival the E25 well.
      And I’d buy it, crew slots or not, but It could definitely fit at least some of my T30 crew. It also looks really really badass.

      • The gun should have 173mm pen. A bit hard to balance it to be worse than Hellcat and Jackson considering those have paper armor too.

        • It would have 172 mm pen , because it’s gun used same ammunition as 90 mm M36 (it’s gun not M36 Jackson tank mentioned) gun on Patton

        • Considering 173mm of pen is very comparable to the 175mm you get from any given D-25 derived gun (like the IS-6′s), that seems perfectly reasonable given the Scorpion is likely fast enough to make the pen work.

    • I say Tier6:
      1. Slightly better pen than the Hellcat’s 90mm
      2. Minimal (if any) hull and turret armor, at least the Hellcat had the mantlet of the RNG Gods
      3. No 360 turret, only 60 degrees (+/- 30 deg) with decent hull-down performance (+15 / -10 deg)
      4. Roughly 2/3 the speed of a Hellcat (45km/h vs 72km/h) although it has good acceleration and rolling resistance. fyi, the E-25 has a top speed of 65km/h
      5. Completely exposed crew (4 btw CGDL)
      6. Slow traverse and elevation movement (manual)

      Full Spec here:
      http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m56spat.html

      • wikipedia says that 90mm t15e1 could pen 330mm at 91m and superpershing nerfed cuze historical accuracy but its gun its not historical , hisoricaly it will have 200+ mm pen like the japoneze tier 8

        • What? Historically, the SPershing could get that penetration level with APCR ammunition. Learn to spell, capatalize, and structure sentences better, please

        • I am not concerned about it’s “Historical” pen as WG changes a lot of stats for “Game Balance” purposes. I was just showing that it (the same gun as on the M46 Patton) has 12 more pen than the 90mm on the Hellcat. btw, The M56 has the same 90mm M36 gun as the M46 Patton (a pen of 172 vs the Hellcat’s M3 pen of 160).

          Before you say that it has too much Pen for a Tier 6, the Nashorn, Dicker Max, SU-100, SU-100Y, ARL V39, and AT-8 (to name a few) all have the same or more pen and a LOT more armor than the M56.

  6. Clearly WG have some internal rules on this because if it was just “Anythign that sells” then they’d have knocked out some US TD already as we all know that, due to the popularity of the US TD lines, it would sell well unless it was manifestly hopeless (and even then sell OK).

  7. - it shouldn’t be a copycat of an already existing vehicle

    So you are telling me that the Type 59 the T-34-3, and the upcoming Lighter T-54 aren”t copycats?

  8. I would be very happy with a tier 5 German HT. The Russians got a long list of possible training tanks, the Germans only got a T8 which is not really the tier to train crews.

    • The only real option is the VK 65.01 H, which is sketchy since at best you have a tank bigger than KV-1, with the armor of a Tiger, with the gun of a late Panzer IV, with the speed of a Maus and the acceleration of a Panzer IV Schmalturm

      OR

      You get a tank bigger than a KV-1, with slightly better armor, with the gun of the earliest Panzer IV’s, with the speed of a Maus and the acceleration of a Panzer IV Schmalturm

      • A tier 5 nice german heavy could be just a captured KV with a german 75mm and a german Pz3 cupola ontop of the turret.

        Little less firepower than normal KV, but a bit more view range, I guess.

  9. Starting a poll about introduction of new premium vehicles and at the same time publishing an article about a cool new US premium td is not a good idea when you want the poll to be representative ;)

  10. So based on what you have said, the FV4204 would be the perfect candidate as well if it is armed with the 84mm and its real armour.

  11. I suggested M56 Scorpion as a US premium TD a long time ago in their Q&A thread on EU forum. No answer or any other reaction. I guess they just don’t care.

        • But on the other hand when you make a topic about some suggestion in gameplay discussion part of the forum there comes the moderator and locks your topic with an info to make a topic in suggestion part of the forum where it’s literally useless because none of the WG staff ever visits that part of the forum.

      • Well, the problem is that I can’t write/speak/read Russian and I don’t know anything about US forums tbh. I wanted to learn Russian but … I did not find enough people and you know CZ schools …

  12. - obviously, it must be a historical and should be a documented vehicle √

    - it should be a prototype or a paper project, mass-produced vehicles are not desired
    Type 59, Type 62, M22 Locust, Ram II

    - the vehicle shouldn’t fit a regular tree √

    - it shouldn’t be a copycat of an already existing vehicle
    Type 59 = WZ-120, Type 62 = WZ-132, JagdTiger 8.8 = JagdTiger, T34 = T29 = T30, AT-15A = AT-15, Sexton I = Sexton II (sort of), T-34-3 = T-34-2

    - it shouldn’t be butt-ugly
    TOG II*, Matilda BP etc.

    Regarding your poll. I see you added the Japs with a high tier MT/LT. Any model in particular that you have in mind?

    • T34 and T29 actually had quite few internal differences and a whole different gun too.

      T-34-3 does not equal T-34-2

      Just because they look alike does not mean they are copycat tanks you fool, if you have not noticed it most of the tank is about the inside.

      • Because I can see the inside of the tank in this game and it has a very big impact on performance, you fool. They have different guns? Oh look! Same thing happens in the regular tech tree. You can change the guns. Wow!

    • Type 59, Type 62, AT-15A was before WZ-120, WZ-132 and AT-15 in the game.
      T-34-3 is not T-34-2 clone. What kind of logic you used on that?
      Only real copy-paste between normal and premium is Sextons. They are nearly identical, expect sexton 1 haves different engine and some differences in armor (?)

  13. Give us some US prem TD(s)!
    They are one of the most popular and largest branches in game with NO premium tanks..
    How much money WG does not earn with not introducing a prem in that branch. If they could realize that..
    And at the moment I have to train new TD crew’s in T34, but existing ones have no crew trainer whatsoever :)

  15. I don’t believe there’s not a single proper tier 2-8 American TD, fit for being a premium vehicle. There are two TD lines, but not a single premium. I don’t care if it’s a paper tank or a design idea, as long as it looks cool and is fun to use (= effective). And premium MM.

        • AT-15A is extremely rare, i mean, i have been seen overall about 5 of those.
          What i heard, it sucks.

      • It does not matter how strong the tank is in absolute terms, only in relative terms. B2 doesn’t have as good gun as the other tier 4 tanks, but it’s always top tier. The result? Top3 tank in the game when it comes to winratio, when used on a pro level.

        WG is avoiding making Premium tanks stronger than normal tanks, but that can be achieved by premium MM. If the tank doesn’t have premium MM, chances are it will be mediocre or inferior to other tanks of the same tier. I don’t need a crap tank that’s only good for credit grinding, when you can buy good tanks which are also good for grinding credits.

  16. So going by all those requirements the Centurion AVRE would fit. It is a version of a tank that exists in game (easy to model) it was produced, and it has only a limited number of modules with a specific gun which works like no other high tier British gun.

  17. What about with the T-54 NVA??? As far as I know it’s gonna be the German tier8 premium medium.
    source: http://wiki.fbfu.de/index.php?title=Deutsches_Reich
    just imagine a T54 in Panzergrau color, with early modification of D10T (175mm and not rly good soft stats) and the late hull (with 100mm of frontal armor), with the “stock” engine of the T-54.

    • Τhe idea of NVA tanks sounds viable (I mean the Type 64 is taiwanese after all), but T-54 late hull at tier 8? It would be Type 59 all over again, with an extra 100hp to boot.

      • It would be a basically slower Type59 with even worse soft stats. Or even less ammo than Type59 has (it has 34 pcs of ammo which is very low imo) or just use other balancing parameters

  18. “the vehicle shouldn’t fit a regular tree”

    So, like for example slow-ass T28 Prototype in the more or less mobile Turreted TD line?

      • Well, he meant that tanks which couldnt fit tho its branch.
        However, this article discuss premiums, and criterias off premium tanks. But i agree with you, there is some tanks that they simply dont fit on branch, for example, FV215b 183 is in the current british td line with its inaccurate, huge, low DPM derp gun, turret, good mobility and poor armor, when other tanks on the line had accurate, small caliber, high DPM sniper guns, no turrets, poor mobility and good armor.

    • T 28 P is extremly slow but none of the later TDs are racing cars…
      It only breaks a 3 vehicle long scheme and starts another 3 vehicle scheme…

  19. SS excellent article,
    except the conclusion, basically your personal preferences,

    the numbers and usage should count and not some historical or analytic reasoning, WoT is a game where historical reasoning is only is one anchor for gamification and customer engagement but the actual reason for delivering a premium tank is how many people will buy it.

    so many soviet MT with no premium tank = soviet MT is a must and this will happen as your poll has very small sample size and does not represent actual customer grouping or classification.

  20. It is too easy to criticize WG for not releasing what we all assume are going to be premium tanks. As they very rarely share any information about future trees past what is coming in the next patch, it is very hard to guess what the next premium tanks will be. We all thought the T23 would be a new premium tank, but a lot of us forgot that it would fit perfectly in a second American medium tree (including me). A lot of the premiums that have not been released or have seen limited release are OP for tier (Panzer II J, BT-SV and from what I have heard, the SU-85I and MTLS-G14).

    There are plenty of low tier offerings that could be made into premiums (like the grosstraktor) but many of us would prefer to see tanks a) we would play (a lot of seasoned veterans abhor low tiers) and b) a tank we could use to train the crews of our preferred high tier tanks.

    The M56 sounds like it would be a great idea. Not an unworkable vehicle like some may propose (Ontos, Krokodil etc) and one that provides the vital crew training aspect a lot of us have been asking for. My poorly trained T28 and T28P crews would be overjoyed.

    Trying to think of other premium possibilities. Vickers A1E1? There are also a lot of little French tanks from the interwar period, but seeing as WG views the French tree as unprofitable I doubt we’d see any of them soon. One of the NbFz has already been modelled IIRC.

    • I also thought about the Ontos when i read the article.
      It looks cool, the 6 guns could work like a 6-shot autoloader ingame, turret traverse is limited and it has no armor.
      And, did i already say it looks damned cool?

      But then i looked for the gun performance…

      400mm pen with HEAT is a lil OP:-), and there is only HEAT and HESH as AT ammo for this gun according wikipedia.

    • Japs lacks heavies, so im sure that devs dont waste one as premium tank.
      Im looking forward to Japanese heavies, and still hoping that they come in 2014.
      Like they said on ASAP 2014…

  23. - the vehicle shouldn’t fit a regular tree

    This is one reason I want the T42 so badly. It doesn’t really fit into any potential tech tree (Because I see M47 being in a tech tree instead, considering it was actually a serially-produced vehicle) and it’d actually be a tier 8 prem medium that behaved and played like a medium.

    And all of it’s parts are already there. It’d take almost no effort on Wargaming’s part to rake in cash.

    Support the cause.

    https://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/224245-90mm-gun-tank-t42-for-tier-8-premium/

  24. M56! M56! M56!

    Unlike most people, I believe the Scorpion should be tier 8. Think about it.

    Insanely high camouflage ratings, ~390+m view range, insanely high hp/t, really good soft stats in general. I believe in the comfort thread someone quoted ~210mm penetration, which makes sense because this is a Vietnam-era vehicle, just like Japanese 90mm are using Vietnam-era ammunition.

    • 172 pen, not 210.

      It basically has 2/3 the Hellcat’s speed, no 360 traverse (only +/- 30 degrees), and only get’s a 12 pt buff vs the Hellcat’s pen.

      No way in HELL that is Tier8.

  25. I’ve never really understood this: why does having module options automatically disqualify a vehicle from being a premium tank?

    Consider: a tank that had a fixed loadout except for say, its turret (none specifically in mind, just an example), of which it had an earlier light one (less armor/better traverse speed/more view range) and a later heavier version (sturdier for better hull-down), both viable options depending on playstyle. Normally it would be disqualified, but why not just add both turrets and make the second unlockable for 0exp/0cr? Why not give players a little more flexibility with their premium vehicle?

    • One of the selling points of a Premium tank is that it is Elite the moment you buy it and can be used more efficiently to train a crew. If it had modules then WG would have to change the program to consider it Elite no matter what modules were researched. Either that or buy it with all the Modules already researched.

      • Right, that’s why you would have the second module option unlockable for free/0 exp. Anyone buying it for its elite capabilities will know to unlock the optional module(s) to enable elited status, and go from there.

        Or, as you say, have them unlocked from the start, but I’m not sure how complicated it would be/what problems would crop up with effectively marking more than one of the same module type as “stock” and therefore unlocked at purchase. *shrugs*

  26. - it shouldn’t be a copycat of an already existing vehicle

    Like Panther M10 ? Which is basically identical to stock Panther? Just painted brown and wooden boards glued to chasis so it looks similar to M10 ?

  27. >Currently, the Jagdtiger 88 doesn’t have historically correct speed (and LFP thickness if I recall correctly)
    You’re right, the JT’s lower glacis was nerfed a few patches back, but they didn’t touch the JT 88.

    >M56 Scorpion
    The predecessor to the Ontos deployment?

    I dig.

    Oh, also this is one of the tanks meant to be air dropped. So if you’re still worried about making high tiered airdropped vehicles viable, well here’s a tier 8 for you. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

  29. I’d love a better British med premium – as long as it was better then Matilda BP. I’m not even buying that, no matter how useful it would be to me.