Our next set of answers from the development team is in - learn about the development of the game in this round of questions and answers!

Question: Is there any plan to add imbalanced or very narrow use tanks only for PvE mode, since it’s impossible to balance them for PvP?

Answer: This is in principle possible. While we currently have no such plans for any vehicles, it is possible that vehicles that will prove too difficult to balance will be used only in PvE.

Question: When selling a vehicle, will it be possible to save secondary crewmembers’ progress, not just the one of the commander?

Answer: Not for now. On the other hand, garage slots will not be monetized – therefore there is no reason to sell the vehicles you want to keep. Improved filters will help you in selecting which vehicles you want to play.

Question: Are there any plans for tier 7 Leopard 2 to get a new armor kit?

Answer: We are currently investigating the Leopard 2 situation. There are no plans to add a new armor kit to the vehicle but we did recently uncover and fix a number of issues in the collision model (armor). The situation of Leopard 2 should improve.

Question: How do you plan to deal with the revolver style auto loading systems of the AMX-13 and SK 105 Kurassier?

Answer: Currently an automatic loader mechanism is already in the game. It can for example be tested on the Begleitpanzer 57 – a vehicle has a limited “clip” (regardless of its form – whether it’s a drum-fed loading mechanism or a magazine) that allows the gun to fire very quickly (until it is spent). After spending the clip it has to be reloaded, which takes a longer time.

Question: How will the boosts work, and how we will get them?

Answer: Boosters are an Open Beta mechanism, consumables that provide – as their name suggests – a boost to player progression – for example by increasing the reputation gained per battle – for a limited time. They can be obtained either for the premium currency (gold) or via other ways (examples: achievements, Base building production). There will be many types of this mechanism that will be added in the future.

Question: Will the model of the Leopard 1 be corrected? The lower front plate is wrong.

Answer: We are currently going over all the models in the game and are improving them in order for them to be historically accurate. The player feedback so far has been a tremendous help to us and we would like to thank you for that. We would however also like to ask you to be patient as these changes are a part of a long, painstaking process and might not appear in the game immediately. Rest assured that we are working intensively on this matter and will improve the models to higher standards.

Question: Can we expect that all the trees of all the classes to be filled up to tier 10?

Answer: Technically there is no rule that would compel us to end every single branch in tier 10 – in some cases there might be smaller, partial branches appearing in Armored Warfare. On the other hand, we do plan to have tier 9 and 10 vehicles of all the classes. Some classes are more difficult than others to find suitable candidates for – tier 10 main battle tanks for example are not that difficult (the obvious choice being the T-14 Armata and the 140mm NATO gun-equipped tanks), light tanks and AFV’s are also available (CRAB, SPHINX, Rosomak, Anders light tank, Šakal IFV) but we currently are not planning tier 10 artillery vehicles (although they will be implemented in time).

Question: Will you reconsider returning the AFV camouflage on the move to how it used to be?

Answer: AFV camouflage balance is a sensitive subject – we do not want to gimp the AFV’s too much but on the other hand we also do not want to make the vehicles completely invisible on the move. We will be watching the issue closely but for now there are no plans to increase the AFV camouflage ratings.

Question: Are training rooms planned for Armored Warfare?

Answer: Yes, this is one of the features we are currently actively developing.

Question: Have you guys thought at all about adding a system where people can add customization elements to the game that they've made themselves?

Answer: This is not planned in near future. We want to for now avoid all the negative effects such a change would inevitably bring (obscene and otherwise offensive pictures such as flags of illegal organizations). Once we develop the appropriate mechanisms to control these negative effects, it is possible such a feature will be considered.

Question: Do you plan to increase the velocity of anti-tank guided missiles?

Answer: No. Shell and missile velocity is a gameplay balance element. Much faster missiles would be on one hand harder to avoid (not fun) and on the other hand harder to control.

Question: After EA4, the EA server is located in EU although we have players from NA. Will there be an NA server other than PTS in future?

Answer: Yes, the regular North American server will return before Open Beta – there will also be a dedicated North American Public Test Server (European Server will have its own separate public test as well).

Question: As you mentioned, 3rd dealer will cover the nations in Asia and others that did not showed up in 1st and 2nd dealer. What nations will most likely to be in initial release of 3rd dealer?

Answer: The initial release of the third dealer will feature only Chinese vehicles, although Polish, Czech and Swedish vehicles will appear in this tree as well soon after.

Question: Will there be a plan to implement camouflage net visually on vehicle?

Answer: Yes, this is planned.

Question: How long does it take to create a vehicle in AW?

Answer: Approximately 2-3 months and a team of several graphics designers.

Question: Commander and crew skills are finished?

Answer: We are preparing an overhaul, during which the commander skills will be made more distinctive. We will probably be replacing the crew system eventually too, but any changes we make will always compensate players for their current progress in the existing system so that they are never losing out on progress made.

Question: How many levels we can upgrade each building?

Answer: Each building is planned to have five upgrade levels with each upgrade level offering increased rewards and bonuses in the initial release. More levels will be added after that and there is no specific level ceiling decided yet

Question: In PTS we can collect 100 base materials every day; can we expect this in OBT too?

Answer: Yes, this is a standard mechanism. Players will be able to collect a certain amount of base materials just by logging in and clicking on the supplies. There will also be the option to earn more materials in PvP and PvE battles, although the exact mechanism of this feature is not yet fully implemented.

Question: The Base will be ready in OBT or later?

Answer: It’s possible the Base will be introduced sometime after the launch of Open Beta. We are currently preparing and fixing it in order to be player-ready.

Question: Will the Base feature allow us to change the scenery of the Base?

Answer: Yes, this is planned – the players will be able to select the environment of the Base in the future, ranging from deserts to winter tundra. In its first iteration however, the Base will feature only one environment.

Question: Immediately after the launch, some players will be leveling very quickly like in every other game. So while majority of the players will be playing Tiers 4-5-6 these people will be at Tiers 8+. What are your plans for the MM so that we won’t have to play in matches where 28 people are T6 and 2 are T8+? Answer: This situation will only be temporary. As more people progress to higher tiers, the matchmaker will stabilize. While we do understand that there might be such concerns, we simply cannot punish players for grinding faster by not letting them play the vehicles they wanted to unlock by imposing extremely long queues on them.

Question: Does a bush offer camouflage bonus to a vehicle that has its gun sticking through it and out of it?

Answer: Yes. However, repeated firing from the same position significantly will in the future reduce that vehicle’s camouflage factor and even well-camouflaged vehicles will be spotted if they only stand behind one bush and shoot.

Question: What is the automatic detection range radius in Armored Warfare?

Answer: 50 meters.

Question: Do fallen tree count as bushes for the purpose of camouflage?

Answer: Yes, they do – the canopies of the trees at least. Naturally trees without leaves will not provide any camouflage bonus as the vehicle can be clearly seen through the thick branches.

Question: With Boss Vehicles, will you be keeping to reality, or may you also be introducing some fictional vehicles with real world equipment?

Answer: It’s possible we will add some fictional equipment to these “boss” battles in order to make the fights challenging and interesting. These might include things such as:

Bosses laying mines

Stealth-based bosses with visual adaptive “Predator” camouflage

Bosses with multiple weapon systems

Etc. Our goal is to create exciting “raid-style” PvE fights.

Question: Will you be eventually adding cage armor, ERA and APS to all the vehicles in the game?

Answer: No. It is an intentional design not to give low tier vehicles these advanced elements not to complicate the gameplay too much for new players. Players will be able to progress gradually, only unlocking truly advanced features on higher tiers.

Question: Do you have any plans to release a separate South Korean vehicle tree?

Answer: South Korean vehicles like the Black Panther will definitely appear in Armored Warfare. Whether the entire branch will consist of Korean vehicles only however is unknown – Armored Warfare branches do prefer to put vehicles with similar gameplay together as opposed to rigid nation-based tree structures.

Question: Currently in Armored Warfare, we are able to use our Headlights on every vehicle. Will you be planning in the future to add a camouflage penalty to these headlights or will you leave them as they are currently?

Answer: Headlights are a cosmetic function that makes the game look better visually. If we add a penalty to it, nobody will use them – therefore the answer here is “no”.

Question: Are the developers considering increasing the PvP group size to four people?

Answer: No. Even three man platoons can be very powerful – four man platoons would have the potential to completely dominate certain battles. We do not want that. However, we are developing a competitive mode for teams larger than three players.

Question: Can we get one – feature maps? For example, why don’t you introduce a map completely covered by a city, an entirely open desert map, a very thick jungle map where the tanks can roll their own routes through it?

Answer: This approach has one inherent flaw. Maps with one type of terrain always favor one type of vehicles. Generally speaking, main battle tanks perform much better on city maps while faster vehicles perform better in open areas where it is easier to flank the opponents. Each map must be balanced in terms of terrain and features not to frustrate players of certain classes too much – artillery ending up on city maps would be the prime example.

Question: Can we get some different game modes?

Answer: Yes, we are developing several. The encounter mode in random battles was already tested, we are also preparing Battalion-level battle mode called Territory Wars as well as new modes for casual players. We will be unveiling them in time.

Question: Can we have AFV's to lay mines?

Answer: There are a lot of challenges with introducing mines to the game in a way that adds depth without a lot of frustration. If mines are not easily visible, they will feel like random damage scattered around the map that enemy players can't do anything to respond to. If mines are readily visible, they can still end up forcing vehicles to a crawl in order to navigate around a minefield, especially if it has been dropped in a bottleneck. It's possible an implementation for mine laying will be designed someday, but it is not in our plans currently.

Question: In your internal numbers, do you have any vehicles that looks balanced in one market, but over/underperform in another due to differences in play styles on different servers? If yes, how on earth do you go about balancing such a vehicle?

Answer: We do have a few vehicles that seem very balanced in one market yet seem to either perform stronger or weaker in another market when evaluated from a winrate perspective. However, just evaluating global winrates is not enough to determine if a vehicle is actually unbalanced because there are elements beyond raw vehicle performance that affect how a vehicle's winrate pans out over time. For example, if one market has a strong bias toward a particular line of vehicles, a wider variety of players are going to pick up the vehicles from that line and winrates may generally balance out across a wide sampling of player skill levels. In another region, that same line might not be popular and only niche players who specialize in what that line of vehicles is strong at tend to play that line. This can cause global winrates for that vehicle to appear disproportionally higher as a result but there might not actually be a problem. If the line becomes more popular due to its perception of doing too well, its stats might go down as a wider sampling of player skill levels start playing that line of vehicles. As a result, when we see a vehicle performing differently across regions, we have to dig into a lot more statistics to analyze what is going on with the results. When a vehicle is under performing or over performing in all markets, it's easy to say that the problem is very likely with the vehicle's own characteristics and we can look there first.

That's it for today, stay tuned for the next part!