Hello Commanders,

From words—to deeds!

Today we’re starting work on one of the hottest and the most discussed issues among those mentioned at WG Fest 2018: the overall 25–30% drop in damage for special rounds. We want to make the shell choice more thoughtful in every battle situation and lower the damage special rounds deal (especially against well-armored spots).

It should be noted: this is the very first testing iteration aimed at general evaluation of our hypothesis described above. For now, it’s merely a rebalance of special shells’ damage, without any adjustments to their cost.

We’ll conduct the Supertest with a limited selection of vehicles (a bit more than 30) to check:

the viability of the idea and the impact of its implementation on the game;

the effect of lowering the special shells’ damage has on the total damage dealt;

the overall combat efficiency of the vehicles involved in testing.

The decision to decrease special rounds’ damage isn’t set in stone as it’s still in development, so it may change significantly. After the first testing run, we’ll decide what to do next: we may change the amount of damage we slash off the special rounds, fine-tune the stats of individual vehicles, or enlarge the pool of tanks in the Supertest to gather even more data.

Of course, we’ll take into consideration your feedback on the proposed changes.

We intentionally selected very different vehicles for the testing pool—for the most efficient tracking of the impact the rebalance will have on battle stats. For some vehicles having APCRs as their basic rounds, we substituted these with AP shots of the same speed. Likewise, for the vehicles with AP rounds as their specials, we replaced these with APCRs. We’ll track the distribution of damage done per shell type, the changes in vehicles’ battle stats with regard to their class and role, and lots of other parameters.

Spoiler Vehicle Gun Old Damage New Damage IS-3 122mm BL-9 390 290 T-44 100mm LB-1 250 190 IS-7 130mm S-70 490 360 KV-5 107mm ZiS-6M 300 225 KV-2 152mm M-10 700 500 Object 268 152mm M64 750 530 IS-4 122mm M62-T2 440 320 T100LT 100mm T 100 300 225 Obj. 430U 122mm M62-T2 440 320 Tiger II 105mm KwK46-L68 320 240 Ferdinand 128mm 44-L55 490 360 Maus 128mm Kw.K 44 L/55 490 360 Jagdtiger 128mm PaK 44 L/66 560 410 E-100 150mm Kw.K 44 L/38 750 530 Panther II 88mm Kw.K L/100 240 180 JagdPz E100 180mm PaK K/72 1050 735 Leopard 1 105mm L7A3 390 290 Pershing 90mm T15E2M2 240 180 T57 Heavy 120mm T179 400 300 T110E4 155mm T7E2 750 530 T110E3 155mm T7E2 750 530 T69 90mm T178 240 180 T49 152mm M81 700 500 M48A5 Patton 105mm M68 390 290 AMX 13 90 90mm F3M 240 180 Bat.Chatillon 25t 105mm mle. 57 390 290 AMX AC Mle1948 120mm AC SA46 400 300 Tortoise 120mm AT L1A1 400 300 Super Conqueror 120mm L1A1 400 300 Badger 123mm OQF Mk. 1 480 350 TVP T50/51 10mm AK1 320 240 Progetto M40/65 Cannone 105/51 M68 360 270 WZ111 1G FT 130mm 59-130JG FT 560 410 Type 5 Heavy 150mm/45 41st year 1400 750

A few questions we hope to get answers for after the test

How much shall the special rounds’ damage (especially against well-armored targets) drop? This is one of the key areas the players on heavily armored vehicles asked us to address. How shall the damage be re-distributed between the two other shell types? Our aim is to reduce the special rounds damage (against well-armored targets in particular). Thus the overall damage of other shell types could grow; we want to check whether it’s true during the test. We’ll monitor these parameters and modify them if needed. How shall the share of HE shell damage change? Currently, the total share of HE damage is small, and we don’t intend to change it. Overall, the combined special HE shell damage is mostly dealt by the Type 4 Heavy and the Type 5 Heavy tanks (we adjusted some stats of both of these for the test). The special round for the Type 5 Heavy will be substituted with a HESH with an alpha of 750 points and a penetration of 193 mm. During the tests, we’ll thoroughly monitor the changes in HE shells usage after the special rounds rebalance. How shall the rebalance affect the battle performance of individual vehicles? We know that currently certain tanks are played with a greater-than-average special to non-special rounds ratio, to increase their efficiency. So we want to assess how these vehicles’ performance changes.

The test is just starting, and your feedback will help us make correct decisions. Let us know what you think, and we’ll consider it while working on the adjustments for the next iteration.

Follow the news and good luck in the battlefield!