Changes to the Game in 2020: Looking Towards the Future

CONTENTS	New Balance: The Next Steps Blueprints Special Shells Crew 2.0 Equipment 2.0 Ranked Battles 2020–2021 Vehicle Rebalancing The 10th Anniversary of World of Tanks Other

New Balance: The Next Steps

We discussed the details of the New Balance features coming out in Update 1.9 in yesterday's article, so make sure you didn’t miss anything!

Will those players who purchased and researched a vehicle that became a Collectors' Vehicle be compensated for the spent experience?

No. If a player had already researched this vehicle they will keep it or the ability to buy it which means that they will not lose anything when it becomes a Collectors' Vehicle. This is why there will be no compensation. Learn more about it here.

Special Shells

Currently, special shells have an ultimate advantage. There are whole subtypes of vehicles with good dynamics and gun handling that benefit the most from Premium shells. However, these shells make well-armored vehicles with supposedly good survivability suffer, which in turn means that the impact of those well-armored vehicles in battle is reduced. Currently, our main goal is to give these vehicles more weight in battle and help them to play a more important role thanks to their survivability.

On the Sandbox server, we tried decreasing the DPM of special shells, and it was received well if we separate this particular change from the rest of the New Balance changes. We still have a lot to do related to shells—for example, we still need to work on HE shells but haven’t made a final decision on increasing the base damage for standard shells yet. So, we are looking at the shell rework as a whole in order to come to a more systematic solution.

Also, we don't intend to reintroduce purchasing special shells for gold, because we want every player to have equal conditions.

More About HE Shells

The way we wanted to rework HE shells didn't quite work out. We want to make this shell type more predictable and understandable. Players must understand how much damage they deal or receive if a shell penetrates and if it doesn't. If a shell penetrates, the logic must be close to the armor-piercing shells, and we are moving in this direction.

Artillery

We will not remove stun from allies, but we will check the settings of the stun system. Stun as a mechanic will not disappear. We can't go back to armor-piercing shells like it used to be in the good old days. There will be no Premium arty, but we will continue working on SPGs.

Crew 2.0

Crew 2.0 is a complex system, and we’re still working on developing various concepts for its implementation. As soon as we have an acceptable solution for both players and our team, you will definitely have the opportunity to try out all the possible changes on the Sandbox open server.

We plan to launch testing around the summer of 2020. At this point, you will have the opportunity to try out the redesigned Crew, and if you like it, we will continue to work on appropriate conversion and compensation mechanics, as well as other aspects of this feature.

The version of Crew 2.0 that you will experience on the Sandbox server is nothing more than an experiment to test our ideas. Please note that any proposed changes may not make it to the final iteration, or may be released in a completely reworked format.

What to Expect on Sandbox

We will implement a new entity—the Unit. It will comprise four crews. Each Commander can be trained to a particular vehicle. All crews within a Unit are united by nation and vehicle type (for example, medium tanks of the U.S.S.R.). Units have levels which determine how many perks the Unit's Commanders can learn. Each Commander can have their own set of Perks/Skills. In fact, a crew can be assigned to four vehicles (+all Premium vehicles belonging to the same nation and type).
There will be so-called Special Crews—these are counsellors who will strengthen the Commanders.
The perk system will be significantly reworked to include more perks, which will each have a level. Perks will be divided into five branches (by analogy with crew members), with each branch ending with two ultimate perks to choose from. To learn them, a player will have to work hard on the branch.
This system will be "integrated" in a Commander, who basically represents an entire crew.

We will test the system on Sandbox. Some of the new perks will resemble the old ones, and situational perks will be added which will reflect the player’s behavior (e.g. a perk that speeds up reloading when the vehicle durability is low). A total of 35 perks are planned, 10 of which are ultimate.

The main rule: a crew makes the gameplay more enjoyable but does not provide a considerable advantage. Diversity will increase, and stronger perks will be used situationally.

Equipment 2.0

We want to diversify the usage of Equipment and move away from identical standard setups. We want to add new types of Equipment that influence new characteristics that were never affected before. We also want to simplify the system of Equipment types and their prices.

Currently, we think that vehicles will have slots for certain Equipment types. For example, one for gun handling, another for concealment or defensive equipment. This should lead to each role and vehicle type having certain bonuses that you will be able to apply to them which will help make their roles and play styles more prominent.

Equipment slot properties will be based on roles. There will be no restrictions for setups but some equipment will be available only to certain types of vehicles. There will be no penalties, only improvements. The bonuses will not be too strong—we want you to look for the right combination of equipment for your playstyle in a certain vehicle.

All this will be tested on the Sandbox server.

There is a problem—the high price of unmounting Improved Equipment, 200 bonds per one unit of such Equipment. Are there any changes planned?

The unmounting price is set to what it is to not reduce the value of Equipment, to prevent players from moving their Gun Rammer from vehicle to vehicle and have them save up bonds to purchase new Equipment.

However, after the introduction of Bounty Equipment, we will return to the unmounting issue, including the one for Improved Equipment. It will be resolved with the player in mind in any case—maybe by increasing the bond earnings.

Reward for Merit has been removed and you can't receive the Demounting Kits anymore. Will you do something about it?

We will add the ability to receive Demounting Kits—we are currently testing how Daily Missions work and if everything is okay with them. We may add Demounting Kits as a reward. And you can also get one for completing a Bonus Daily Mission.

Ranked Battles 2020–2021

For 2020–2021, Ranked Battles will return to World of Tanks with 3 engaging Seasons. Depending on your results across all three Seasons, you can earn the ultimate reward—a Tier IX tank. Its name, class, nation, and characteristics are top secret and will be published at a later date.

Based on your feedback, we slightly revised some gameplay mechanics to get you more involved in playing in Leagues. To do this, special daily missions will be available for those who qualified for Leagues. We’ll also rework the mechanics of earning Bonus Battles, and shorten your journey through each Division.

There is an opinion that only researchable vehicles should be allowed in Ranked Battles (reward vehicles earned for activities on the Global Map and for Personal Missions should not be allowed).

Right now, we do not have a unanimous opinion on this issue. One of the possible solutions is to use the matchmaker for this purpose, but that is also debatable. Any new rule in the matchmaker extends the queue time. At the same time, players of Ranked Battles are already limited by the number of players, servers, and Prime time. Many players are not willing to wait 5 minutes or even longer for a battle.

For the time being, the developers and players need to come to a consensus on this issue. So far, everything is under discussion.

Vehicle Rebalancing

This year, we’re going to continue the rebalancing work we started in 2019 for some popular vehicles. We have already adjusted the characteristics of the Leopard 1, the STB-1 and other great tanks, and now it’s time to take another step forward and adjust the performance characteristics of the E 100 and the legendary IS-4, among others.

In the German branch, we plan to rebalance not only the E 100, but also the VK 36.01 (H), the E 75, the Tiger I and the Tiger II.
For the Soviet nation, in addition to the IS-4, we aim to pay close attention to the KV-3, the KV-4, and the ST-1.
In the American branch, the T32, the M103, and the T110E5 will be subject to rebalancing.

This list is not complete, and it is possible that other tanks will be added to it in the future.

We are also thinking about options for rebalancing wheeled vehicles. Players have a hard time hitting the wheeled vehicles, so it should be fixed in the first place. The effect of damaged wheels is minimal—it insufficiently affects the overall maneuverability and mobility of the vehicle. It needs to be fixed and we will take care of it this year.

The 10th Anniversary of World of Tanks

2020 marks the 10th anniversary of our game, and we’re going to celebrate this milestone in a big way, together with all of you! Large celebrations will kick off in April 2020 and will last until the end of the year.

We have prepared a lot of engaging events and a huge amount of other game content for you. The Anniversary will consist of five thematic stages, each of them corresponding to certain milestones of World of Tanks which have left their mark in the hearts of players. Veterans will smile and remember the good old days; novices will be surprised to learn some curious facts about our project.

Together, the five stages of the Anniversary will demonstrate how much World of Tanks has changed and grown over the past 10 years. Celebrations will culminate in August 2020, and sure enough there will be plenty of pleasant surprises during this month! A feast of special gifts and rewards galore await each and every player, so be sure to party with us!

Do you plan to “pardon” banned players at the 10th Anniversary of World of Tanks?

Yes, we do, but we are not yet ready to disclose the details about which players and violations will be "pardoned".

Other

Battle Formats. Do you plan to reinstate the removed battle formats or implement the ones that are used in events like Team Clash?

The 7/54 format was removed permanently and will not return. The Team Clash event on the EU server showed us that players actually enjoyed the 7/70 format, so we want to launch it once more but without binding it to any specific game event. We want to see how players perceive the gameplay itself, whether they enjoy everything. If all goes well, we will consider the options for its use, the rewards and other things. Only then, after implementing the improvements, we will launch it, if needed.

The 7/70 format will not be the new eSports but rather WoT-sports for amateurs.

Game Events Overlapping Each Other

Recent DDoS attacks seriously affected the schedule of the game events, so for the good of players, we had to move some events. The choice was simple—either cancel some of the events or overlap them. We chose the latter. It will not happen again in the future.

We are also planning new activities for clan players, in particular in Random Battles.

Bond Shop. Will the items be updated?

The items in the Bond Shop will be updated approximately once every 6 months. We will update the Shop this year and will use the start of the new Ranked Battles season as a reference.

UI Issues. How and when do you plan to fix the transparent textures that can't be shot through and "slippery" objects?

This is a systematic issue connected with the use of third-party technology in our engine. The issues arise when different technologies are interacting—we had them before Update 1.0 but they were less frequent. We are working on the fix, but these issues also require some participation from the owners of the technologies, and it takes time.

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