Hello everyone,

Storm posted another of his “microdigests”. It’s really small – in it, he publishes two things:

- today, he was appointed the chief strategist (lit. “visionary”) for game balance and game mechanics

- developers are working on “smoothing” the maps, getting rid of “microrelief”, by which he means “fixing the existing issues” with small hills or something (it’s not very clear, what I understood under that is making the small hill edges less “jagged”). It will begin in 9.5 and will be done with the speed of 2-3 maps per patch. Storm however states that large map features will remain, the “microrelief” adjustment concerns small height increases and decreases. The goal is to allow tanks with bad depression to fight without suddenly aiming their gun above the enemy tank’s turret and to make fast tanks not lose their speed too much on such spots. It does however NOT concern like one meter hills/obstacles, that allow tanks to use depression.

From the discussion:

- arty will not be removed from the game.

- one player’s reaction on that statement above: “FUUUUUU”, Marschig (another developer): “Oh yes and someone has to make sure the artyphobes suffer :)”

- very small surface irregularities will be compensated by new motion physics

- the 70 Mb micropatch broke XVM because of the new tank introduction

- new terrain render was not yet introduced

- “Fury” Sherman does not have limited MM

- Storm’s occupation for near future? “I will think about balancing problems”

- currently, developers are solving the following issues (those come first): camo + spotting, accuracy spread



- accuracy on the move won’t be nerfed – Storm: “fucking around with accuracy on the move leads to camping” (SS: lit. “masturbating in bushes”)

- new WoT sounds will come very soon

- Fury Sherman weight is correct, it’s caused by “the equipment on the vehicle”

- the “War Thunder” type hangar (where you can inspect armor, modules, crew layout) will come “when it’s done”, according to Storm this feature is not THAT important. It will apparently include only the armor schematics, not the module layout.

- Malinovka will be reworked in 9.4

- Batchat was not nerfed recently

- some maps will be completely removed from the game. Currently, developers are discussing which ones.

- Storms state that 44 maps in the game is too much, it’s very hard to work with such number

- Japanese will get a “Patton-like” premium medium tank (SS: ST-A2B)

- premium tier 8 medium Soviet tank will come in 2015, the T-54 Model 1945

- Storm wants to nerf the accuracy a bit (to return it partially to the old one, but not totally)

- penetration as a whole is going to be studied as well

- when the new batch of statistics arrive, developers will also decide if there’s too much gold rounds for credits flying around and whether it’s a problem or not

- the issue, where driving to the foot of the hill slows your tank too much will also be fixed with new physics

- Panzer IV Schmalturm will get the side armor plates to act as spaced armor, when it is reworked to HD

- all tanks will be reworked to HD, including the rare ones like A-32

- the original plan for HD tanks was to rework to HD first those tanks, that fought and are very well known