- switching the FV4202 for the Chieftain? What will happen to FV4202? Storm: “No comment for now”
- “everything is okay” with the alleged Wargaming anti-bot program
Storm on optimization in 9.1:
“Basic optimizations were aimed at removing freezis and FPS drops on weak configurations. General game performance shouldn’t change for the general masses of players. In the second test, there will be some additional fixes: fix of the FPS drop when switching to sniper mode on medium and low terrain settings, fix of the game performance when shooting automatic guns (this was added to test 1 patchnotes by mistake, it will change only in test 2)”
Since I don’t see it in on the EU announcement, I’ll translate them myself (changes from test 1 to test2)
- returned the 9.0 shooting sounds
- Hellcat and Jackson engine sounds returned to the ones in 9.0
- returned the tank explosions from 9.0
- fixed several cases of the appearance of the “black screen” bug
- fixed the appearance of black and blue tracers in sniper and arty mode
- fixed the bug where the map took too long to load on low graphic settings
- fixed the quick FPS drop when switching to the sniper mode while having other than maximum landscape settings set
- fixed the bug that caused FPS drop when shooting with rapid fire automatic guns
- fixed some crashes and freezes of the game client
- fixed the bug where the sound effects and voice alert was missing in some cases of shell hits
- fixed the 9.1 test 1 bugged changes of SU-100 camo when shooting
- changed the settings of some of the German tanks in the Bryansk Front HB
- fixed the bug where, when you switched from artillery mode to arcade and then back again while holding the RMB, the size of the aim circle was incorrect
- fixed the bug where the resolution setting resetted every time you ran the game in fullscreen mode
- added the support of 5:4 screen ratio
- fixed some of the errors in switching between your tank and allied tanks when you die
- fixed small graphic model issues of some tanks
- fixed small mistakes on some maps
- fixed the destruction effects of some objects
- Storm confirms that the alleged 9.2 IS-7 DPM buff promise is a photoshopped fake
- the feedback for 9.1 Test Hellcat and Jackson engine sound is very positive
- the 300 meter sound radius (changed to 600 meter in 9.1) cannot be set via editing XML files
- XP awarded for “tanking” (for potential damage)? “It’s not rumors, but I won’t give you any details”
Storm explains the infamous “28 bots” video: “It was an staged battle after the restart of the server, where there were practically zero players online. They gathered a few people, they ran a few clients with bots and they entered the battle on the count of three. And they achieved such an effect. We banned the experimenters.”
- Storm confirms there will be a second round of the test
- Storm confirms that the 9.1 Valentine II armor change is a fix, the armor will be the same as in 8.11 (SS: apparently this got the Russians very excited for some reason)
- in 9.1 there will be no new HD models
- Province (SS: not sure about the name in English, the lowtier valley) and Widepark will not appear in high tier battles, they are too small
- the new sounds were implemented into the 9.1 test for feedback collection, it’s not yet sure whether they will appear on live server the way they are
- both the sound and the graphics correspond to the full aim circle reduction (SS: as in, both the sound and the graphic circle should show that the circle is fully aimed)
- WT E-100 150mm gun is not overnerfed
Check the new article by Listy about US Marines serving in China
- Storm on quoting Discovery Channel (Great Tank Battles show) as a historical source: “Discovery is even more laughable than Wikipedia. My source are our historical consultants.” (SS: the question was, whether there were Tigers in Ardennes – there were a few, they didn’t fight though)
- for now, developers aren’t considering removing the rule where both sides have to have the same amount of arty (and scouts) (SS: this rule is not absolute, I think there is +/-1 tolerance)
- Storm states that when it comes to historicity of guns in World of Tanks – made up tanks (WT E-100) can have any gun that fits, historical tanks can only have guns they had in real life
- Storm regarding the assault mode: “What is there to comment? It’s a normal mode. I play it from the beginning without switching it off.”
- Storm, explaining why assault and encounter modes don’t have their own specialized maps and responding to a player who claims they are bland:
“Because we don’t consider it rational to make maps for those mods only. You personally decide the level of blandness of a mode? Are there any normal criteria that determine “blandness”? Assault and Encounter mode are finished and polished. Historical battles are in the state of finding the correct solution.”
- Storm reacting on the “28 bots in one game” video: “You’d have to find out what is shown in there in general and how it happened. Personally, I don’t have time to do this on Sunday. Sorry.”
- according to Storm, the TD share in battles has long since stopped growing and now is within normal frame. WG checks every month.
- too many TD’s in battles? “Statistics do not confirm that” and “We do not observe the dominance of TD’s”
- long map loading? “We are investigate this issue”
- Storm states that the IS-7 buff planned was a hoax started by Jove (Russian streamer), there will be no buff (SS: to my eternal shame, I jumped on this too – basically, he – or someone else – photoshopped a fake screenshot of “Storm’s post”)
This is how the fake looked (quite convincing)
- Storm doesn’t know whether the A45/FV201 will be a tier 7 or 8 and when will it come
- situations where you get the same map several times in a row are apparently okay
- the engine sound will not be heard during the battle countdown, the vehicle will fire up after the countdown reaches 0
- of all players online, the percentage of players in queue changes, the amount of players online depends a lot on events and missions
- in the test, SU-100 guns (D-10S and D-2-5S) did not get their camo factor after shot nerfed, this will be fixed in the next round/live client
- the same gun on various tanks (unless it’s premium tanks) should not have different camo loss after shot from one another (SS: as in, for example D-10S will lose the same amount of camo factor after shooting on all tanks that carry it)
- the fact the loss of visibility after shooting for RhB was nerfed only slightly is correct
A small mistake correction, yesterday I didn’t pay attention and mistook AMX50B elevation for depression. Elevation – +11 degrees in game, +14 in real life, Storm said he’d mention it to balance guys.
- Storm confirms that pre-9.1 average damage done won’t count towards the kill marks introduced in 9.1
- you’ll have to play at least 100+ battles to get a kill mark
- Storm doesn’t like comic book movies, he only liked Nolan’s Batman
- T40 camo factor after shooting was seriously overbuffed (in 9.0, it could be detected at 350 meters, in 9.1, it will be detected at 378m when shooting. To compare – Borsig in 9.0 – 354m, in 9.1 – 364m)
- Storm confirms there will not be an option to pick two gun soundset (the game client would get too big and too much testing would be required)
You can leave feedback for Overlord under his blog post
- Storm definitely doesn’t want two variants of gun sounds (Hollywood/realistic)
- Storm will discuss the sounds feedback with WG colleagues on Monday
- regarding “action on maps” (NPC events such as bomber air raid, artillery fire, bridge breaking down, cliff collapse etc.) – “Action is good, but first we have to deal with general performance”
- Soviet premium medium tank? “When it’s done it’s done”
- E-25 nerf? “I can’t tell anything for now”
- AMX50B historically having better gun depression than in game (-14, in game -11)? “I will ask the balancing guys”
- Overlord does think it would be better to enable historical battles one by one (SS: and so do I)
Answers of Knopka (some Russian community manager or developer, she is rather infamous on RU forums, forgot why)
- Stronkholds and Havok need more testing, planned for future updates
- optimization is WG main goal
(stopped reading at this point, generic/boring stuff, will return to it later if there is no better info)
Storm is asking for your feedback on the 9.1 test, specifically:
- game performance and possible loss of FPS
- new map
- new gun sounds
- new turret and shell sounds, new sounds of Hellcat and Jackson
- and of course bugs
Here Storm states that the bug where the screen turns black in battle is known, it will be fixed.
Regarding the gun sounds, Storm writes that many are complaining about them and say that they are bad. Storm emphasizes that the gun sounds are in the test to gather playerbase feedback. The sounds are recorded in real life (some “sound photoshop” was used only for the shells of the largest calibers). The volume of the sounds as it is is on their limit – any louder and they will begin to distort. Storm states that according to player feedback, many don’t like it the way it is in the test and it’s possible it would be more correct to make unrealistic “Hollywood” sounds instead (SS: personally, I actually like the new sounds).
- Komarin is not considered a balanced map (SS: it’s going to get a fix in 9.1)
- Storm confirms that the premium Valentine armor nerf is a bug fix (bringing it to the way it was in 8.11)
- the idea to split the engine and trasmission module has been abandoned for now
