Thursday, August 30, 2012

[WoT] For Better Armour!

It was decided that in 8.0 update the normalization value will be decreased to 4-5 degrees for all rounds.

The change is supposed to raise the importance of armour in the game, leading to increase of "we-didn't-even-scratch-'em" shots.

Aiming weakspots and not shooting blindly will become even more beneficial.

Precise vehicle control and aiming FTW!

73 comments:

  1. you do this while E-100 will keep the current stats on KwK 44 L/38 gun?
    that's ....

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  2. Hopefully you remove or at least clearly decrease the "critical hit" & "we hit 'em hard" etc. 0HP hits. It's ridiculous when firing a T-50-2 tank with BL-10 and do a "we hit 'em hard" clear hit into it's side and the tank will continue moving like anything has happened...wtf!?!

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  3. so basically you did this to balance out the new high pen guns of the russian and american and french tanks to make armor usefull again cause now most tanks can be penned with ease

    BUT

    the german low pen guns, like the short 88 -.-, 128mm and 150mm , 50 mm guns will be even worse from now

    so either keep ti as is OR buff german guns, not in the damage department but in the penetration values

    FFS make the jerries usefull dammit

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  4. Do you increase tanks income or decrease ammo cost? Because more bounces and ricochets means that we will spend more credits for ammunition.

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    Replies
    1. Not in 8.0, though it would be curious to track ammo expenditure after the change.

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    2. There can be also drop in incomes due to physics. More suicidal deaths or selfdamages, drowning tanks - all these features will lower amount of HP which can be destroyed by players in fight, so incomes will go down. The same can be with XP.

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    3. And who said you can't buy premium account? Nice move, WG!

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  5. This will really ruin the immersion of the game removing tanks shooting at eachother from 200m+ because people will instead drive head to head ramming and facehugging eachother :-(

    If the change is noticeable we might as well be driving heavily armored bumper cars!!

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    Replies
    1. If it wasn't clear I meant to ask what the arguments are behind this adjustment. What are the devs trying to achieve from this? Have battles become too fast when most tanks in a battle can penetrate any tank on the oposite team?

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  6. Also have you considered how difficult it will be to push through an attack on a land owner digging himself down in FW? Some maps are already a little low on time...

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  7. Finally, M103 will be less medium tank and more heavy tank.

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  8. This is simply bad IMO.
    All armored vehicles in this game had their armor values set towards gunfire with 8 degrees normalisation in mind.
    THis was E75's turret was considered a had spot, while the LFP - a pretty damn weak point of the tank.
    After the buff properly angled LFP may be actually tougher than the turret front.
    What's even worse - it'll be damn hard to penetrate by German guns, but Soviet/American/French guns will punch through anyway.
    But the real beneficient of those changes are gold-ammo users. HEAT will now be MUCH more effective than AP. Vs 60-degrees angled vertically and 20-degrees laterally armor, E100's HEAT was as good as around 270-penetration AP round. Post 0.8, E100's HEAT will be better than BL10.
    If APCR keeps its 12-degrees normalisation, German/Soviet/French/US gold ammo will be so much more powerful than AP it'll be almost crazy.

    AP won't be able to reliably penetrate angled armor even on a good hit any longer.

    In short: German turrets will become the most obvious weakspots (Maus turret, E75 turret), IS4, IS7 get a huge buff, German T10 heavy guns will become useless (150mm will be a HE/gold ammo gun). Gold ammo gets a huge boost in usefullness, which is BAD for the game.

    OVeral, a terrible adjustment. Just nerf penetration of the top guns by 10-15mm instead and take away some of the alpha from T10 TDs. Thank you.

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    Replies
    1. RandomPlayer,

      all vehicles in the game have their armour close or identical to what they had in RL, plus the current normalization rate previoulsy was about 11-12%. This change will increase skill factor and make high tier battles more tactical.

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    2. People were always firing at the weakspots anyway.
      The problem was created by WG itself by adding tons of high-penetrating guns to the game, which was an obvious case of power-creep. Obvious to anyone, but WG.
      Now under the cover of "fixing" this issue you're making gold ammo the only working AP ammunition, because Is7's LFP sure as hell won't be penetrated from 30-40m by S-70 with any reliability any more. 128L55 will be ven funnier.

      Armor of E100, Maus, IS7, IS4 was working when they were shot at by German guns, sometimes even overperfoming. It was obvious that if T10 tanks had a bit lower penetration (242-262 for heavies, 239-250 for meds, 275-285 for TDs) everything would work just fine. Now, after decreasing the normalisation from 8 degrees to 4, you'll either have to buff the penetration of German guns, or Germans will be left with spamming HE, which isn't really fun.

      And those historical armor values - E100 had 240mm, now it has 250mm, which one wast historical? E75 has 250-somethingmm on the turret, isn't this turret pretty much made-up by WG?

      What this patch is really for is increasing the amount of people who are buying gold ammo. And BTW which T10 tank other than 50B was penetrable without aiming at weakspots? IS4 when angled was pretty tough, and if we nerf normalisation, it'll get too tough even. How many guns can hit its LFP at 150m reliably? E50M and?

      Once again:
      Normalisation wasn't an issue, crazy penetration values of TDs and meds and some heavies were the issue. But I guess tweaking penetration values (and in case od TDs - alpha) would not bring gold sales up.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Meant T10 heavy tank.
      Also, artillery won't be affected, so basically it'll secure its position as the real king of the battlefield even more. Is WG going to nerf artillery HE too, or leave it as it is, so artillery will get even more commnon and annoying?

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    5. Im just curious if any of devs and U Overlord even play this game on a more than casual level. Becouse speaking about skill factor and high tier battles expirience by a person who doesnt feel it right just prove how delusional the staff is.

      And im not saying that ideas that U have as a WG are wrong becouse U just trying to make this game better.
      But U need to remember that its not like U have an open beta phase. PPL already paid much for this game and they are about to keep it running in the long term. And they just demands that U can listen.

      But when someone trys to make an constuctive conversation about something let it be tanks underperforming, OP one, graphisc issues or some other resonable thoughts and they just crash at invisible wall ... U know how does it looks like ??

      Im not saying that U should listen to all emo rage u getting but when there is an issue known more than a 6th months already and U are just doing nothing or the overall efect is the same as U didnt it just proves that U cant listen properly.

      Becouse many answers to all question that U fighting with have already been given by players .

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    6. RandomPlayer,

      "The problem was created by WG itself by adding tons of high-penetrating guns to the game, which was an obvious case of power-creep. Obvious to anyone, but WG."

      FFS meng i wouldnt say it bettter

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    7. So you nerf it economically, even though you know that anyone with even T5 premium tank can easily grind enough credits to play this artillery piece over and over again.

      Do you also realise, Overlord, that T8 artillery isn't exactly earning lots of cash. Further nerf won't change much.
      Also, people will play artillery, since it'll be the most effective damage dealer in game by far. Even now among top 5 best damage dealers in game there are 2 T8 arties. Now imagine what will happen when everyone but artillery will get a huge nerf to their damage dealing ability- artillery will thrive like never before.

      Also, it's not like all in-game guns need a nerf, and your normalisation tweak will hit all of them. Nerfing penetration values of overperforming guns would be much easier.

      Decreasing normalisation to 7 degrees wouldn't be that bad. But 4 degrees is definitely too much, it'll lead to a need to rebalance so many guns and tanks. And since WG couldn't rebalance E100 in so many months, I doubt that WG will succesfully do this with half of in-game vehicles.

      Winter is coming.

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    8. OverlordAugust 30, 2012 5:17 PM
      RandomPlayer,

      "all vehicles in the game have their armour close or identical to what they had in RL, plus the current normalization rate previoulsy was about 11-12%. This change will increase skill factor and make high tier battles more tactical."

      Not true, look at Panther G turret in game 45/45/45 when historically Panther G turret(along with A and D turrets) were all front 100mm @12 degrees including the 100mm curved gun mantlet(and later chin mantlets in sept 44' which is the current ingame model, although these were more rare than the curved).

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  9. Overlord, can you confirm that the changes in the compensation system won't after the lateral angle compensation?

    I mean, we find after the IS-8 hull armor test, that the 40 degrees default side angle of the upper hull works like 30 degrees and the 55 degrees vertical angle is calculated as 55-8 with the current compensation system. So effective armor by WoT terms is 120/cos47/cos40 = 203mm head on armor.

    In the game Is-8 can bounce shots with up to 180 avg pen with reliability so it seems like lateral angle is always cut down by 10 degrees.

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    Replies
    1. Nope, this change is supposed to affect it.

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    2. So you confirm, that there won't be any previous separate cut for the side angle or it will be changed bye a level like for vertical slope?

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    3. In other words:
      how will this new normalisation be applied:
      1) to effective vertical and lateral angle
      2) separately to vertical and separately for lateral angle.
      And will the values for lateral angle normalisation (2nd case) be the same as those for vertical?

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    4. BTW are the Devs aware of that the Pershing and the T-44 won't be able to penetrate the frontal armor of the Type-59 with these changes?

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  10. Great. So now medium tanks will have even more trouble trying to penetrate heavies, whilst they can still sit back and shoot with ease.

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    Replies
    1. Meds have higher win percentages after all, time to suffer.

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    2. Actually, that buffs certain mediums tanks who have sloped armour.

      The Russian line T-34 -> T-54
      The German line Panther -> E-50M
      The USA tanks - M4A3E2 Sherman + M48A1 Patton
      French will still have thin armour, but may get random bounces more often now.
      Type 59 will bounce more.

      The forums will end up being filled with people who are going to be complaining about secret buffs to these tanks when this change is made. Better prepare.

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    3. I can't find any tank, which won't benefit from this change.

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    4. Most tanks with flat armour, such as the Tiger. Although, it can always angle itself and should be able to bounce more shots.

      But yeah, it will make skillful players more rewarded. They'll bounce more and their shots should still be able to penetrate.
      Well, people wanted their armour to be more useful, and others wanted their mobility to be more useful.
      This is going to be a game changing patch.

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    5. I partially agree with you - the main problem is, however, that a lot of people will buy gold ammo and even skill can't do anything against those bullets.

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    6. That's fixable. A bit of patience. :)

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  11. Great great news Overlord :)!!

    Hewever, some tanks like the KV-5 or the E100 will become pretty pointless now.

    Are there any buffs planned for these tanks, or any others with penetration problems?

    Regards

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    Replies
    1. kv5 every time faces tier 8s, and still is really hard to penetrate by 175mm-200mm gun pen, the E-100 will be buffed and i hope the penetration will be buffed too like 150mm 250penetration and 128mm like 260-265mm

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    2. KV5 faces also T9 tanks.

      They are pretty much impossible to crack right now, a normalisation nerf would make the tank obsolete in T9 matches.

      Delete
  12. Am I right in saying this will:
    -Solve the near-arcade gameplay problem in T10 matches with 270-303mm pen that make even the best armor moot? Point-click-30k repairs

    -Have a negative side effect on everyone with lower-than-average penetration? We deliberately choose to ignore the fact that angling tanks with the aforementioned guns will have a greater effect :) .

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  13. Another nerf for the already low penetrating german guns

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  14. The E-100 is definitely going to need a penetration buff now.

    235 penetration at tier 10 for a heavy tank is abysmal compared to the new T10 TD's.

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  15. Don't all complain about German nerf of Russian bias, it has nothing to do with nationalism.

    This is a pure business driven change, more bounces = you make less credits, gold ammo is even more important now.

    Only economy and greed are the focus here, nothing more.

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    Replies
    1. gold? what a noob, learn to play and aim, thats the point of armor, bounce!, with the introduction of t110 and french the armor become useless, now the armor will be protect our tanks in special when you are pro and know how to angle the armor, thanks god, now the game is more based on skill than op tanks and luck

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. I have the same opinion.

      But come on guys, this is not some drastical change, but still there is too much emotions IMO.

      E-100 and Maus will have even more effective armor now, so opponents has to go to shot its sides and it will definitely make opponents side armor and weak spots easier to shot for E-100 or Maus.

      In summary, if I would be German Heavy Tank driver, I would be more than happy when see this change.

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    4. Yeah, that will be pretty hilarious: no one will be able to penetrate them and they won't be able to penetrate any t10s...

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  16. Dear Overlord,

    Let's start with a fact: german tanks are unwanted and last picked for Clanwars and Company battles. This is a clear indication that they're underperforming and less competitive compared to other tech trees. This normalization change will push them to new lows, as already explained by numerous posters. If you or the dev team thinks otherwise, care to post a logical explanation? (other than all tanks getting the same treatment)

    I drive tanks from all nations, but in the last few months you guys successfully made me to stop playing and selling everything german, unless it's low tier funtank. Is this truly a good marketing plan on the long run? (limiting diversity by imbalance)

    Regards,

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  17. Will HEAT ammo also receive normalization benefits? If yes then this is a huge buff for HEAT.

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    Replies
    1. No, HEAT doesn't have any normalization.

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    2. Couldn't be simplier to write which shell type gets which normalisation?

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    3. Anything that do not explode

      HE = High Explosive
      HEAT = High Explosive Anti-Tank

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  18. Few questions:D you do not visit EU Q&A very often so...
    Will you make it possible to transfer XP of an crewman unneeded in higher tier vehicle to another crewman (or all)? I mean for example M46 to M48 advance where there is - 1 crewguy. Opposite way would be nice too. And this is quite urgent matter I believe:P

    Why Soviet td line orginating from meds ends in some IS-7 thing? Why not SU-152 Taran? Because it has a turret? You racists:( Is Taran going to make it into the game?

    Can we count on more x3 crew exp events? IMO those are best events of all:P

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  19. I wonder where the last post I made here gone...

    Anyway,

    It will be fun to watch the next ASAP video and see what Serb will say about your 5 year plan for the game. Cause you just made the next move to crash it into a wall.

    There are a lot of huge games coming out at the end of this year. Another indirect nerf to German guns and buff to Russian tanks probably won't be too good.

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  20. This is a buff for tanks which shoot HE (== arty) and tanks which are most sloped (Russian tanks).

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  21. At 4 degrees normalization, the Type 59 will now have 218mm of effective armor on the front. Think about that. Tanks and TDs don't break the 220 pen barrier until tier 8. I should have picked one up when I had a chance, having a tier 8 premium medium that'll be completely immune to frontal hits by ANYTHING tier 7 or lower will be freaking crazy. Add in the "Mommy! He hit me!" special matchmaking the Type 59 gets, and tier 8 matches are going to be hell on Earth.

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    Replies
    1. 100 / cos(60-4) = 178

      I'm more worried about the Super Pershing. That thing can already bounce tier 240mm pen guns with ease..... Hell if it came across the new T10 TD's they would have trouble punching a hole through it's armour.

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    2. The Super Phersing have a big weak spot on his turret that can be shoot easily. Not a problem.

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  22. Dear overlord,

    First of all great work on patch 8.0 so far. I really enjoyed the physics preview!

    I've seen the game improve alot over the past year and think you guys are doing a great job at balancing things out (sure there are always people who whine about russian bias etc, but all in all i think nations are pretty evenly balanced).

    I think this will be a nice buff to most tanks. However with the current 0 dmg hits I wonder if it would become really tedious for tanks like the Jagdpanzer IV or other low penetration tanks to actually do damage. It seems kinda unfair that the high penetrating guns from Heavies will almost have a guaranteed hit while a TD might bounce off the front of a heavy tank. I'm talking about tier 3 ~ 7 TD's here, the higher tiers are obviously fine.

    Obviously mediums will not notice too much since they are mostly flanking sides and behinds of tanks. And with tanks like the Type 62 or Chaffe (wich i both own) you concentrate mainly on flat armor surfaces and never try to hit anything angled.

    All in all i think it will be a good change because it will make players think about shooting and reduce "lucky" penetrating shots on the front of a tank (making it useless to angle your tank in some cases since high pen guns will penetrat you anyway). But i do think that some TD's (and maybe some low tier heavies like the T1 heavy or german tier 4 ~ 6 meds) will need a small buff in penetration.

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  23. Finaly, a real new TD and OP French meds NERF!This game is right now joke where armor means nothing...

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  24. feels more like gold ammo FTW? ^^

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  25. Overall a good change but I can predict several problems.

    1) Gold Ammo 4tw (I dont suppose WG will care)

    2) T59 has extremely good angled armour it's tough to frontly penetrate with a t44 now, after..

    3) IS7 will become immune to fire from the front from even more sub t10 tanks.

    Btw was the hit box ever fixed for the is7? (mud guards and triangles above and outward from the mud guards)

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    Replies
    1. Plus several flat tank designs will become even worse.

      Egh the heavy British tanks are going to suck, slow, low damage, flat fronts.

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    2. Yes becouse U have already played one !!

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    3. The AMX models will get ridiculous bounces from 100mm and up calibers

      The t50/t50-2 will get even more ridiculous bounces

      Expect the type to bounce from the back now as well

      And i expect the german techtree to have much less bounces than they have now(the techtree i mostly play)

      I wonder sometimes why do they even patch the game ?! to make things worse

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  26. So tank destroyers will be nerfd in a way.... one does not simply angle him self in a TD... gun limits angling of armor while heavy and medium tanks can do whatever they want since they have turrets.... Also dont like the idea of learning "which tanks can i penetrate and which i cant" all over again ... Seriously isnt there any other way of fixing this problem. Just saying this will completely change the game and how it is played (sniping will be even harder another think that TDs are supposed to be good at)... Moreover tanks like is-7,is-3 object268... with its pike shaped frontal hull will benefit from this a lot more then normal angled or box shaped tanks... I really hope you are taking into account that some changes might be needed for some already balanced tanks because of this. I am afraid that even though there is new lightning system and physics I wont be playing this game because of some other reason.

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    Replies
    1. o come on, you can angle your tank and bounce more than before, you have to take that into account too, a tiger angled will bounce much more than before, lets see:

      1.- 7.5 patch curret shell normalization 8-10 degress (8 Ap-10 acpr)

      A tiger angled at 30º---> 100mm@cos 30(22)=107 mm that mean 7 mm more, at 45 degress 100@cos45(37)= 125mm that mean 25mm more

      2.- 8.0 patch current shell normalization 4-5 degress (4ap-5 acpr)

      A tiger angled at 30º ---> 100mm@ cos 30(26)=111 now you have 111 mm more, at 45 degress 100@cos45(41)= 132mm that mean 32mm more, as you can see now the tiger at tier 7 will bounce much more, you can applied this to every tank with flat armour, and by the way with a tiger you should not brawl, learn the role first ;)

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    2. Where do you see me talking about the tiger ?? I dont even own it. Anyway tiger might get more bounces but your are forgetting the fact this will mean that for example IS will get more bounces too. It will get even more bounces since his armor is already sloped and with angling you could make it even better. This means tanks with sloped armor will be even better then box shaped tanks like tiger, vk36,pz4...and you missed my point completely... Majority of TDs dont have turret so if they angle too much they cant shot the tanks they want, while tanks with turrets wont have such problems... Also T9 Tds wont be able to penetrate is-7 and other T10 heavys anymore...what they are making now is taking the last bit of TDs superiority and smashing it to pieces... there have been a lot of medium tanks and heavy tanks buffs in this game but TDs always stay the same and have to struggle and adapt... which concerns me as I am TD player myself (have isu , ferdi, M18, T28,...)I cant flank in TDs meaning I will mostly have to shot the frontal armor of tanks and now this will be even harder then ever with this patch... what is the point of TDs anyway if they wont be able to do the only job they are supposed to do...penetrating frontal armor at long ranges since you cant brawl and shot view ports with TDs (tracks destroyed and you get circled).

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    3. ok, first I put that example about the tiger cause you said ohh the tanks with flat armour will be nerfed, is not, when you angle now is more effective, is simple, it is a example.

      second a td should net angle cause is not a first line attacker, pffff, and if you are in that situation after shoot angle yourself, nothing more, you are an spg you need a team alive if you want to stay alive, ohh come on the is7 now is already weak, easy to kill, for me the t110 will be the real problem, that shit bounce ass hell, is7 is easy to penetrate if you know how the armor works in game.

      third, tds still have insane penetrations than the tanks of same tier, you only need to aim carefully, and I agre in one thing, with this patch I hope they reduce the rng and dispersion, if not we could bounce all the day.

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  27. with this changes overlord are you planning to reduce the RNG(like +-5% or +-10%) and the dispersion too? becouse if not we can bounce all the day, this game like every game have to be based on skill more than luck, someone like me have enough dealing with lag, I hope you considerate that, cause in this moment people with luck some times win criticals battles, and should not be in that way

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  28. Well, I suppose this change will lead to

    - increased earnings for WG in gold ammo bussiness
    - lower earnings of silver coins in matches.. more premiums accounts...again real money for WG

    thats fine, i wish you huge earnings but...

    there is another question? Why you cant fix bugs? (visibility, 0 dmg hits, stuck in terrain)

    And least thing this is another nerf for german tanks (german top canons have horible pene, now its problem to penetrate magical IS7 armor..) Do you guys have some mental issues about WWII or?

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  29. First thanks for keeping this blog running. I can see its not easy, as people can be so mean.

    I'm writing here because of my concerns about changes I see in game. First thing is the playability and fun factor in game. Now that new meds and TDs are out the changes to game have been dramatic. There is absolutely no tanks that can push trough lines, there is no tanks that can easily flank (T-54, BatChat, Patton). T-62A has good DPS, but lack of mobility makes it not fun to play.

    Penetration of old guns, especially german can't penetrate these new TDs. On the other hand new TDs can do it at any practical angle.

    What I ask you to change is that there would be tanks at all extremes and in middle ground. So that Maus would be slow moving fortress again who can push trough lines while taking damage. Old T-54 was agile dog fighter with bounchy armor and lack of accuracy, it was considered superior to E-50 in all but sniping, but thats fine.

    Heavies were clearly distinct, E-100 was big, slow, good damage, but bad pen, T-30 was same but lacked hull armor and got pen instead, IS-7 was bit op in randoms but not in CW.

    Biggest change is heavies lack of armor v. TD & med guns. Now med can pen E-100 turret front with ap ammo! Other is TD's insane resilience to ap fire and their too high damage. Good old days any tier 9-10 tank could take 2 direct hits from any enemy and most likely survive (all tho in bad shape). Now this is not the case anymore.

    And what comes to historical accuracy, I consider it secondary as like IS was developed to be Tiger killer. So it naturally has better pen and performance. Same is repeated over and over again. Most important thing is that same tier tanks can be compared well enoung.

    Some fixes could be implemented in mm level instead so that random battles So that tanks are more carefully selected to balance the teams. This would make it easier to change balance as only mm code need to be changed and no tank specifications. In companies this is at responsibility of company.

    I have put more than 200€ to this game so far and I'd like to play(pay more) but what I ask in return is that you (WG) would listen more of your customers. Even to the level to let us specify tank parameters in certain ranges.

    Other changes I'd like to see is applique armor, so that people could tailor their tanks to different style of play. This with reduction of normal armor would add more variability to tanks.

    Thanks for your time and I hope we see good changes in future!


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  30. With the drivers hatch removal of the is4. Is4 will really get a huge buff. becuase it will bounce more for sure now. Then agian the is4 you still be able to expect frontal weakspots.

    And the E-100 might be buffed becuase of this tweak 3 patches or so after it. Since the 150mm will rather bounce happy after it. Maybe this it what it takes to make the devs to wake up.

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