[WoT] Bailout of 7.2

Think, everyone or almost everyone has already acquainted with the changes in WoT game economy introduced in 7.2. They can be found eg here (EU). So it's clear "what", but still may be not clear "why" or even "why the hell?!".

The initial economy balance tuned at open beta stage, the one the game went live with, was affected greatly, and mostly in a negative way, by multiple changes in game mechanics (getting rid of "teleporting", tweaks in penetration mechanics, HE-mechanics, hitboxes changes etc etc), changes in vehicle specs (buffs&nerfs), introduction of new tanks and some other factors. Most of the time such kind of impact was hardly predictable.

As a result of the above the economy balance as of 7.1.(1) moved quite far from the designated values designed and set initially. The situation wasn't gamebreaking, but it really hurt and this has to be fixed sooner or later. So we have scheduled the major changes for 7.2 and adjusted the following.

For tanks:

• income per battle
• repair costs
• research costs
• price in credits

For modules:

• research costs
• price in credits
• tier

Summarizing the changes, the total effect that may not be obvious for players at first glance - the gross influx of credits into the game for all tiers is increased, which along with reduced research costs for most of the tanks and modules will lead in most of the case to the decrease of overall number of battles to get the highest tier, ie reduce the grind. See the picture below, that characterizes the current (7.1) and patched (7.2) credit incomes of heavy tanks in game for standard account.

The same charts for other classes are practically the same barring a few minor differences, eg we alleviated the reduction for high tier TDs for the only reason of their not very high percentage in game, comparing to other classes.

Especially, the grind will be less significant at tiers 1-4, now for standard account the experience and credits are earned simultaneously, so approximately at the time the next vehicle can be researched, there is enough credits to purchase it.

At tiers 5-8 there are changes in both directions with the majority of tweaks aimed at reduction of the current profitability rates. Vehicles of these tiers went too far from the designated values. However we still do stick to the concept that tier 4-6 vehicles (3-5 for SPGs) are the most profitable ones. See the chart for meds:

Even with the reductions made at mid tiers, taking all tiers into account the changes are in the black. Comparing to our basic concept that tanks should on average break even for standard account at tier 7, it's not true strictly true at the moment. All tier 7 ones do MAKE money on average in 7.2. So the initial strategy was adjusted here.

At high tiers there mostly were "plus" changes. Top vehicles, including tier 10 heavies and tier 8 spgs, have become too unprofitable and needed to be buffed economically a bit. That wouldn't allow them to make money on a regular basis on standard account of course.

What else should be highlighted:

• there was no income nerfs for premium tanks;
• preferential mode for high tier TDs;
• a great number of discrepancies have been fixed, including abnormal research costs for tanks and modules (eg 105 mm Gun T5E1, 8,8 cm KwK 36 L/56), tiers of modules, etc.
• there was no ammo cost rebalancing which is still might be necessary.

Economy is really a long and complex story, that can be flamed talked about endlessly, just like balance in general. Hope, I have cleared the things a bit.