Improved Physics Environment in Update 9.14
On 15 March, Update 9.14 was released in World of Tanks. Besides the Improved Sounds and other changes that are aimed at improving your World of Tanks experience, the physical environment has also been improved. In this article, you will learn about the new features, how they were tested, and how they were developed.
From Testing To Release
One thing we kept in mind while improving the vehicle movement physics was that we needed to strike a balance between realism and gameplay.
Focusing too much on realism could be detrimental to gameplay, because it could greatly changed the dynamic and enjoyable gameplay of World of Tanks. Making the physical environment extremely realistic would cause the player to fight their own vehicle as well as the opposing team, which would no doubt be frustrating to the player.
For the reason, we conducted many tests in 2015 to gather feedback from players in order to properly analyse and adjust the settings for in-game physics.
Thanks to the immense amount of work done by both players and developers, we were able to find a sweet spot between realism and playability. Where possible, we have minimised the changes to the usual behaviour of tanks, and added new ways to play them. Some old flaws in the mechanics of vehicular movement were also fixed: namely, reduced speed when driving through small obstacles and the complete loss of speed on slopes, resulting in immobilisation.
New Opportunities
The new physics environment makes it possible to destroy an enemy tank by ramming into it, subject to certain conditions (difference in mass, terrain, and so on).
Vehicles can now sharply change their direction of movement. This is done by suddenly stopping one (or both) of the tracks by pressing the SPACEBAR key and the corresponding movement key(s) for the intended direction of movement. This movement may be useful for escaping enemy fire.
As a result of the improved movement physics, vehicles will now lose much less speed when passing over small obstacles.
Of course, this is not all that we're doing for the in-game physics. Player feedback is always important to us, so if you have something to tell us about the new features, share your experience and suggestions with us on the forum!