I'm going to try to limit the amount of content posted about current tanks in the game as the upcoming Global Rebalance will likely turn all of my posts on their heads. I think I will promote what I see about the Sandbox Server heavily and maybe talk about some more general topics occurring in the game right now and in the future. I think I may try to do some posts soon about crew skills...
Also, I think that my early posts about the Tier 6 Clan Wars Tanks is pretty up to date, and I think that the OI is not the end all, be all heavy, pretty sure Russian heavy usage is increasing, but OIs are still great for city maps, regardless of their terrible gun statistics.
Comment what you want to see!
-Spirtwalker
Friday, June 17, 2016
WOT 9.15.1 and 9.16 Future Patches Talk
As most of you all know, sandbox is live, and there are many theories as to when those changes will hit the liver servers. I have a few theories:
(Also, 9.15.1 is a minipatch between the patch coming at the end of the summer with some UI and the new Swedish Tank Prem)
Theory 1:
9.15.1 during the summer
9.16 in August/September that introduces Global Rebalance which allows Sandbox to be live for about 15 weeks
9.17 in October to fix bugs/balance from 9.16
9.18 in December to introduce Swedish medium tree
(Please be this one)
Theory 2:
9.15.1 end of summer
9.16 in October to introduce Global Rebalance
9.17 in December to introduce Swedish tanks
Theory 3:
9.15.1 during summer
9.16 at end of summer/October (skips end of summer normal large patch) and introduces Swedish tanks
9.17 in December for the Global Rebalance
Honestly guys this is me just spit-balling based on what they have said on their recent developments posted on other WoT blogs. I thought this might be an interesting series of ideas :).
-Spirtwalker
(Also, 9.15.1 is a minipatch between the patch coming at the end of the summer with some UI and the new Swedish Tank Prem)
Theory 1:
9.15.1 during the summer
9.16 in August/September that introduces Global Rebalance which allows Sandbox to be live for about 15 weeks
9.17 in October to fix bugs/balance from 9.16
9.18 in December to introduce Swedish medium tree
(Please be this one)
Theory 2:
9.15.1 end of summer
9.16 in October to introduce Global Rebalance
9.17 in December to introduce Swedish tanks
Theory 3:
9.15.1 during summer
9.16 at end of summer/October (skips end of summer normal large patch) and introduces Swedish tanks
9.17 in December for the Global Rebalance
Honestly guys this is me just spit-balling based on what they have said on their recent developments posted on other WoT blogs. I thought this might be an interesting series of ideas :).
-Spirtwalker
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
How Wargaming Makes Money
Thought I would give something different today, so here goes a bit of a rant and on a tangent I have not been on before:
How Wargaming Makes Money
(Keep in mind I am ingnoring WoWp and WoWs for the most part, as well as any other WG game)
World of Tanks has been a massively successful game from 2011 to 2014, with huge additions to tank trees, physics changes, and insane numbers of premium tanks. This is all well and good for a paying player-which were common in these years. This game has its largest player base in RU and a decent size in EU. EU also seems to have the largest Clan Wars scene, as well as housing the most E-sports teams. (China/East Asia have not been taken into account as I am an NA player and China servers are not actually owned by WG atm)
Since then, the game has been less about adding in new tanks, but more about adding in premium tanks and UI changes, as well as improving the game as a whole, but not cranking out new content every month. Their initial strategy worked for a while, without having to really worry too much about balance. This is definitely evident in the power differences between the main nations and the smaller nations that are newer to the game (but still, TVP OP). This mostly goes for games in the random battle mode, as Clan Wars demands a more specific kind of tank. Also, Wargaming has moved the game to favor Russian tanks over any other, they have high DPM, decent alpha, and good mobility. However, there are other, non-Russian lines, that are strong, but meet these criteria. Arty is a major factor of this, as well as the slight change away from open maps to corridor maps.
The introduction of new tanks promotes the purchase of premium tanks (crews for new sets of vehicles, i.e. Skoda T40 for TVP crew) and premium account, in order to get these top tier vehicles faster. This strategy worked, until they ran out of tanks.
From 2014 (or so) onwards, Wargaming made greater balance changes, and larger additions to tank tree depth (T8 LTs, being one example), as well as UI. This does not mean that the game was better in the "old days" (We miss you TBC and Wrath of the Lich King), as the game contains more balance and varied gameplay. Clan Wars has also improved greatly for the more casual player interested in higher level gameplay, but no access to top tier tanks, or an insane amount of skill.
Wargaming will also always make money on players that collect tanks, but they need to start looking to make the game better for the average player (which is free to play, maybe $20 spent). Also, Wargaming will now no longer make money on the top level players, as they (me included) now play this game for free with Clan Wars gold. This means that Wargaming need to create a better game that promotes fairer gameplay and has more variety/depth. There are two was to go about this:
Wargaming could develop a skin system like CS:GO. This would destroy a already broken game by making skins/camos valuable for real money, and have varying degrees of rarity. This would hurt the game as World of Tanks is not currently balanced, and adding this would give the developers less incentive to create new content, other than skins for tanks. (CS:GO is balanced so they could do this)
The other option to do what they are calling the "Global Rebalance". This would help solve the fairness problem and hopefully address the impact of corridor maps by helping all tanks fit their new roles, instead of going on the roles they established years ago, for outdated maps. This would undoubtedly promote more interesting gameplay. Their "Sandbox Server" should show this in the coming weeks with the Global Rebalance coming either at the end of summer, or the October/November patch. Personally, I think that the summer patch would be best for monetary reasons, as to start the next big gaming part of the year with a big incentive to play. This rebalance will also mostly effect lower levels, up till 10 because currently most higher tier tanks have some degree of balance.
This rebalance will hopefully promote WoT as an Esport which will generate the most effective revenue stream for Wargaming and promote the game's longevity.
If you are still ready thanks a lot,
-Spirtwalker
WoT Servers and Ping Explanations
Just so you readers all know: I finished my exams and you can expect more posts :). On to my article thing,
World of Tanks servers in NA are located in Northern VA and in the middle of California, somewhere near San Diego (I think). This means that people near the East server (like me, I could probably walk there) tend to get around 15-35 ms/ping. People across the country tend to get around 100-115 ms/ping, and vice versa. Keep in mind this takes into account a good and steady internet connection.
As you may know, there are quite a few AU/NZ/Oceania players on NA servers because they don't have their own dedicated English server. They tend to have anywhere from 150-200 on West and 200+ on East (this does tend to fluctuate according to my NZ buddies). Wargaming was probably right to not make a new server for this group because they have a limited player base.
Also, there are some EU players on NA and they have 115-150 on East and 150-200 on West (at least according to my friends in Germany/Eastern EU). This is why I think that Wargaming should be able to implement server switching, but I can understand their hesitation due to many technical issues and server requirements. The other option would be to tie each account to a global server base- with the ability to auto-connect to the nearest server but manually select a possibly international server. Although I don't ever see this coming to the game, I think it would be interesting to allow more freedoms.
Thanks for reading this article- it took some time to gather the info I did,
-Spirtwalker
World of Tanks servers in NA are located in Northern VA and in the middle of California, somewhere near San Diego (I think). This means that people near the East server (like me, I could probably walk there) tend to get around 15-35 ms/ping. People across the country tend to get around 100-115 ms/ping, and vice versa. Keep in mind this takes into account a good and steady internet connection.
As you may know, there are quite a few AU/NZ/Oceania players on NA servers because they don't have their own dedicated English server. They tend to have anywhere from 150-200 on West and 200+ on East (this does tend to fluctuate according to my NZ buddies). Wargaming was probably right to not make a new server for this group because they have a limited player base.
Also, there are some EU players on NA and they have 115-150 on East and 150-200 on West (at least according to my friends in Germany/Eastern EU). This is why I think that Wargaming should be able to implement server switching, but I can understand their hesitation due to many technical issues and server requirements. The other option would be to tie each account to a global server base- with the ability to auto-connect to the nearest server but manually select a possibly international server. Although I don't ever see this coming to the game, I think it would be interesting to allow more freedoms.
Thanks for reading this article- it took some time to gather the info I did,
-Spirtwalker
Friday, June 10, 2016
DPM for 9s Graph
Here is the graph for DPM at T9. There seem to be some small shifts but nothing really noticeable. Also, T9 is not usually used in a competitive format, so this will mean little for the state of the overall game, other than the prem round changes to all vehicles. (especially HEAT)
The T9 artillery seems to have little nerfed in the form of overall statistics; their guns are very similar and have similar soft stats. They don't have the same nerfs as the top tier artillery have in terms of damage and penetration.
It is possible that Wargaming is only doing the first test to show the effects of changing the T10s (and therefore effecting the guns at T9 as many are shared with 10s) in order to gather data about how the new effects react with the old. It is also possible that Wargaming think that Tier 9 is relatively balanced, except for the prem rounds of course.
Tell me if you want a speed graph as well!
-Spirtwalker
Sandbox Server: Overall Goals and Impressions
Many leaks have been posted on thearmoredpatrol.com about the statistics of Tier 10 tanks and how they will interact during the first iteration of the sandbox server. I am going to describe each class seperately and conclude on how they will come together. The overall tone of the nerfs seem to be a slight nerf to Russian meds and an overall mobility nerf to everything (but not really to heavies). Also, view range at Tier 10 seems to have decreased at an average of 50 meters per tank. (however this varies greatly on which line; this is an average estimate) Premium rounds have taken a nerf across every class, generally giving each tank about 30-50 more penetration. (HEAT damage loss was scrapped)
Artillery:
This was everybody's main concern as of now in the current live server. Arty does too much damage with no effective counters. They nerfed the damage and penetration of artillery to lessen their damage. They also seem to have buffed the splash radius to a crazy degree as well as providing some small help with aim time and accuracy. AP damage is unclear.
Mediums:
Heavy mobility nerfs were given to most mediums except for the E-50M for some reason. Russian mediums were nerfed so they are now not the best snap-shot medium, replaced by the Patton which now has better DPM and alpha. 100 mm guns now do 300 damage and 105 mm guns do only 350 damage and 121 does "only" 420. View range nerfs effect all except for the TVP which now has a strangely high amount with 430-the most base view range, ever. Aim times and dispersion values were tweaked on many tanks but it would take too long to cover this as it is tank specific, not throughout the class. However, the overall accuracy seems to have increased, with some tanks being heavily nerfed (Bat chat).
Heavies:
DPM of all heavies seems to hover around 2.2k to 2.3k except for the 215B still having 2.8k DPM. Penetration has also been standardized to around 250 for all heavies. Interestingly, the Maus and the E 100 have received a DPM buff to surpass other heavies like the E5 and 113. Heavies now seem to be compared mostly on chassis instead of dpm and gun statistics. Also, damage per shot has been scaled down a bit; each gun does less than currently.
Tank-Destroyers:
Some pretty heavy nerfs to DPM and overall damage per shot has been decreased. The DPM nerf has seemingly not effected the E4, which now has the highes DPM of any Tank destroyer at tier 10. TDs also have gun stats that have changed on an individual basis, which is too long to cover.
Conclusion:
Heavy tanks have received some serious love, prem rounds no longer instantly pen everywhere, tds have lost dpm, most fast tanks have been reduced in speed, and spotting has been greatly reduced. On top of this, artillery damage has been nerfed which mostly concerns heavies but also every other class. This is definitely a global re balance and I would hope to cover any of the other large "leaks" or whatever you want to call them.
-Spirtwalker
Artillery:
This was everybody's main concern as of now in the current live server. Arty does too much damage with no effective counters. They nerfed the damage and penetration of artillery to lessen their damage. They also seem to have buffed the splash radius to a crazy degree as well as providing some small help with aim time and accuracy. AP damage is unclear.
Mediums:
Heavy mobility nerfs were given to most mediums except for the E-50M for some reason. Russian mediums were nerfed so they are now not the best snap-shot medium, replaced by the Patton which now has better DPM and alpha. 100 mm guns now do 300 damage and 105 mm guns do only 350 damage and 121 does "only" 420. View range nerfs effect all except for the TVP which now has a strangely high amount with 430-the most base view range, ever. Aim times and dispersion values were tweaked on many tanks but it would take too long to cover this as it is tank specific, not throughout the class. However, the overall accuracy seems to have increased, with some tanks being heavily nerfed (Bat chat).
Heavies:
DPM of all heavies seems to hover around 2.2k to 2.3k except for the 215B still having 2.8k DPM. Penetration has also been standardized to around 250 for all heavies. Interestingly, the Maus and the E 100 have received a DPM buff to surpass other heavies like the E5 and 113. Heavies now seem to be compared mostly on chassis instead of dpm and gun statistics. Also, damage per shot has been scaled down a bit; each gun does less than currently.
Tank-Destroyers:
Some pretty heavy nerfs to DPM and overall damage per shot has been decreased. The DPM nerf has seemingly not effected the E4, which now has the highes DPM of any Tank destroyer at tier 10. TDs also have gun stats that have changed on an individual basis, which is too long to cover.
Conclusion:
Heavy tanks have received some serious love, prem rounds no longer instantly pen everywhere, tds have lost dpm, most fast tanks have been reduced in speed, and spotting has been greatly reduced. On top of this, artillery damage has been nerfed which mostly concerns heavies but also every other class. This is definitely a global re balance and I would hope to cover any of the other large "leaks" or whatever you want to call them.
-Spirtwalker
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