recently, an open letter from the developers to members of gaming community was published. Its purpose is to make “community a cleaner place”. To quote it:
We believe that everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or disability has the right to play games, criticize games and make games without getting harassed or threatened. It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish.
If you see threats of violence or harm in comments on Steam, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook or reddit, please take a minute to report them on the respective sites.
If you see hateful, harassing speech, take a public stand against it and make the gaming community a more enjoyable space to be in.
Thank you
The author should start playing World of Tanks. He’d go crazy within hours. Either way, it’s a… nice gesture. There are over 600 signatures under it, including the one belonging to one Matt Parker from Wargaming Chicago (whoever that is, the people are mostly Americans though). I find it decent. Let’s celebrate this proclamation of decency with the best quote from Wargaming developers!
Storm: “Suffer faggot, your suffering makes us happy!”
Nah, seriously, I like Storm and SerB for being direct, it’s much better than endless buttering and sugarcoating.
this little story comes from Belarus. Apparently, the “tanks game” (World of Tanks) caused their marriage to divorce.
Apparently, a woman named “Ekaterina” (there is a photo too, but somehow, I don’t think it’s the woman the article is about) married a guy, they moved to a village and apart from some small issues, everything was just peachy, until the villainous husband started playing the evil addictive game World of Tanks! He started spending all his free time in the game and spent also quite a lot of money on it, came home at 15-16PM, started playing and played until midnight every day, even on weekends. He ignored the wife’s pleas to go out or even to have a walk, stating “it’s just a hobby”. He became cruel, aggressive, stopped paying attention to what he was doing and saying (at this point, the woman admits it might have been a little bit her fault, because she started screaming straight away). In the end, she got fed up with it and moved out.
How terrible.
To be quite honest, given the fact it comes from a “lady portal”, the stock nature of photos and everything, I think the story is made up, wouldn’t be the first time. One thing is however interesting about it – even IF it is made up, it shows that in Belarus (and I do believe this can be applied to Russia as well), WoT became such a cultural phenomenon that even woman magazines started to notice. That is not exactly easy to do – only a few games achieved such a status that even non-related media took notice – Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty (related to various controversies such as “No Russian”) and now, World of Tanks. Quite an achievement.
recently, Storm openly confirmed that the Sturmtiger will not be implemented. From what I heard on Russian server – it’s connected to an incident, where on the supertest, Storm took a Sturmtiger for a spin and out of three shots, he oneshotted IS-7, Maus and E-100. Whether that’s true – well, that’s not confirmed, but it would certainly explain his distaste for such a gamebreaking vehicle.
Regardless, it’s true that a 380mm rocket mortar cannot effectively be balanced in the game, at least using “regular” rules. Sure, you could just give it a small alpha (on 183mm level), but that would be strange and illogical. Plus, it seems that’s already decided, so now the real question is, what to do with the rest of the line?
Well… for starters, it has to be realized that by getting rid of the Sturmtiger, you are most likely getting rid of tier 8 and 9 as well. Early Wargaming thoughts, confirmed by Storm, were along the lines of:
Tier 8 – Sturmpanzer Ferdinand (basically a Ferdinand with 210mm mortar)
Tier 9 – Sturmpanzer Bär
Tier 10 – Sturmtiger
All three have massive guns, starting with the 210mm, that, while a derp, would likely be just as hard to balance on its tier (imagine a 210mm shell landing on your tier 6). The Bär has a 305mm howitzer/mortar (good luck balancing that against tier 7 vehicles), so it’s likely that these candidates took a trip to the “scrapped” folder along with their tier 10 brother.
Lower tiers however are entirely salvageable. Tier 5,6 and 7 would likely be SIG33, Sturmpanzer IV (incorrectly known as Brummbär, that name was apparently not used historically) and Sturmpanzer Panther, which is basically a Panther with a 150mm short howitzer in the turret, it looks like this:
And yes, that is actually a historical project. The 150mm gun itself does not have exactly stellar properties (do not be fooled by the caliber, the gun was not that powerful – the HEAT shell could only penetrate some 150mm of armor) – in fact, the Brummbär was confirmed to be “fine” with it, so we can assume everything from the line up to tier 7 is useable and we are now missing only tier 8,9 and 10.
- according to The_Chieftain from US forums, M56 Scorpion (US premium TD) was postponed to 9.5 or 9.6
- WoT Blitz for Android testing will start on 17.9.
- minimum require processor for Android: Mali-400MP, Adreno 320, PoweVR SGX544, Tegra 3 – 1200 MHz dualcore processor, 1GB of RAM
- the graphic settings in WoT will be extended to allow players to disable various elements (bloom and such)
- Cannoneer confirms that Mk.2 Chieftain will replace the FV215b (120). Its upper frontal plate is 85mm thick (under 72 degrees), apparently the (often cited) 120mm value of upper frontal plate is incorrect, it likely comes from the fact that the original Chieftain requirement was 120mm of armor under 60 degrees, while in reality the plate is thinner, but has better angle (SS: 275mm EFF)
- accidental suicide in the new suicide detection system will also apparently be a cause to flag your account with “unsportsmanlike conduct”
in 9.3, Wargaming is introducing new system to punish suiciders early quitters from battle and AFKers. According to the post, linked above, this is done specifically to punish players, who quit early, depriving the enemy team of one kill for example.
The anti-leaver system
If you try to quit the battle prematurely, you’ll get the following screen
It says “Your team needs you. Quitting the battle until it’s over or until your vehicle is destroyed is considered to be a desertion and can be punished”
After a certain number of these quits (Storm mentioned the number 3), the player will stop getting any XP/credits or medals until he starts playing fair (exact conditions are not known). This system will not be applied to complete newbies.
AFK checks
A new AFK check system is implemented. If the game recognizes you were inactive in battle, you will – just like above – after a warning, stop recieving XP and credits. This system does however take newbies and situations where for example you lose internet in account.
Suicide checks
Practically the same goes for intentional suicides as for the matters described above. First a warning if you suicide and if it repeats itself, 0 creds/XP/medals for you. Random accidental suicides will not be punished.
Basically, if you see the warning window, you aren’t getting anything for the battle. Next battle will be okay, but your account will be flagged If the behavior as described above persists (a flagged account gets punished), you’ll get fined for longer time.
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
according to the site linked above, the ETA for the Android version of Blitz is “a couple of weeks“, so I guess it’s not that far. Meanwhile, the success of Blitz attracted other companies. A clone was already presented, called “Wild Tanks Online” – see for yourself how (if) it’s different than Blitz.
once again it’s the time to thank the contributors, it’s you who keep FTR running after all! This time, following people donated via Paypal:
anonymous (United States)
Robert I. (United States) – thank you for your continuous support, I remember your name already
Kosala A. (Sri Lanka)
Incub (Germany) – another special thank you for large contribution
David K. (Germany)
anonymous (Swirtzerland) – keeping your wish, another special thank you :)
Wremise (Germany) – another special thank you for the wish as well
Andreas K. (Germany)
Ferdinand W. (Germany)
Mandy G. (Germany) – special thank you for contributing
T-28 (Austria)
Gary W. (United Kingdom)
Raul A. (United States) – another special thank you for very generous contribution
Allan R. (New Zealand) – special thank you for a very generous contribution
Oliver S. (Finland)
Thank you all, guys. I really appreciate it, especially during this shitty time for me. It’s an enormous support – not just with the money, but with the fact that you care.
The Patreon service is oddly delayed again, that’s why there is no Patreon review.
In any case, this is the For the Record Patreon account
Please note that the last article about 9.3 changes was not correct in one point. Birch Gun 25pdr did NOT get removed, its internal ID just changed.
- the “XP for damage, blocked by armor” will not be reworked to incorporate damage done to tracks, because “tracks are not ‘tanking’”
- M8A1 in the game is not called “Scott”, because Scott is the name for M8 HMC and not for M8A1 (which is generally not correct as well, the correct version would be M8 GMC). The turret that was removed from M5 Stuart in 9.3 will be in the game as stock M8A1 turret, turning the M8A1 into M8 HMC (“Scott”) and M8 GMC hybrid, when the M8A1 gets reworked to HD
- T92 Light Tank does not have an autoloader and will not have it in the game (SS: if it gets implemented)
- T92 Light Tank will not come in 9.4 and it’s not a tier 8 light tank (SS: as in, it’s lower), it will not come this year
- the Firefly branch will be a mix of LT, MT and TD’s (LT – M2A4, M3 Honey MT – Lee, Sherman, Firefly TD – the rest)
