Hello everyone,

It’s been a few days after the Developers Q&A, and I’ve had time to watch the stream a few times just to create a digest with the most important information. If you missed the stream, Wargaming NA & EU had a live stream on Facebook with Thaine Lyman, World of Tanks Product Director, and Milos Jerabek World of Tanks Developer Director where they talked about the new German Heavy tanks, new graphics, new Tier X Light Tanks and the new Matchmaker.

*Please note there will be some grammar mistakes, as I did this while I was listening to the stream. Please do let me know if you find any and I will correct them.

The new German Line was needed to bring the German Heavy tanks up to speed with other nations;

For developers, it was also a way of creating a common play-style, where players have consistency through out the line that ended in the Maus;

The Pz.VII was introduced to do the same with the VK 42.01 B branch.

Wargaming has plans to keep re-balancing other tanks that haven’t been touched for a long time, so they are “updated” to fight new vehicles introduced in the game;

Light Tanks and the Matchmaker are deeply connected, meaning Wargaming had to introduce Tier X Light Tanks in order to fix the Matchmaker;

Next big patch will bring the new Tier X Light Tanks and Matchmaker;

Tier X Light Tanks will be able to function like in mid tiers, they will have their purpose/role;

Wargaming wanted to eliminate the weirdness of Scout Matchmaking and make it easier for all players to play as a Scout;

Tier X Light Tanks guns have decent stabilization, so they can go around tanks and harass other tanks, but they are not snipers;

Tier X Light Tanks are play style will be up close to the enemies, but because of their maneuverability they will be able to scout for their team;

The reason Wargaming is limiting the number of games and what we test each time on Sandbox, is in order for them to be able to collect the correct data on how the game will change with these new vehicles and other changes;

There will be a lot of testing from Wargaming, so these changes are introduced without breaking the game;

The Sandbox Server was a way Wargaming created in order to be able to test drastic changes and see how it would change the game, without the commitment of bringing it to the game. This way, developers can be more creative and collect more data safely;

Tier X Light Tanks gun soft stats are overall worse than Medium Tier X, they are smaller so they can scout, but Tier X Light Tanks won’t be able to stand a 1vs1 fight versus a Medium Tank.

The Medium Tanks are a Jack of All Trades and very versatile, Light Tanks will have a specific role: scout.

Wargaming is still looking on what to do exactly with the AMX ELC bis, but they will make sure the changes done to it are the correct ones, because the vehicle is one of the players favorites;

Wargaming has a specialized Historical Team that works on what it will be the next big thing coming to the game, this is the team who found information and more details about the newly introduced German vehicles;

Wargaming has buffed the worse Premium Tanks first, but they now are planning to buff a few others so they can perform slightly better;

Wargaming never wanted to make Premium Tanks worse than regular tanks, the idea was to not make them better , so they weren’t pay to win, but this wasn’t implemented correctly;

, so they weren’t pay to win, but this wasn’t implemented correctly; Wargaming plans by the end of 2017 to have fixed the issues with Maps, Matchmaker and SPG’s;

New Matchmaker tracks the maps each player plays, to minimize the change of getting the same maps over and over again;

The new Matchmaker has a basic ideal template of 3+5+7, but if there isn’t enough tanks to fit this template, it can adapt to a different template but retain balance;

Platoon will be limited to one tier ;

; Matchmaker will match equal tier platoons, for example, if the player team has a Tier VIII platoon, the enemy team will also have one;

Wargaming will keep working on the new matchmaker even after it’s released to the Live Server;

Different iterations of the same map where seen as different maps by the old matchmaker, this is fixed in the new matchmaker ( H: Ruinberg and Winter Ruinberg are seen as the same map, for example)

Ruinberg and Winter Ruinberg are seen as the same map, for example) Wargaming doesn’t have any plans to introduce a +1/-1 Matchmaker for higher tiers, but they are talking and might test it for lower tiers. There is already a +1/-1 Matchmaker for Tier I and II.

There is a minimal number of battles a player has to reach, before it can be matched against any player. Wargaming already has a “protection system” for new players so they can gain experience and skill before they are matched against a more “veteran player”;

Wargaming believes Object 252U is a very strong tank at Tier VIII, but it’s not that special if playing against Tier IX and X;

The Sandbox Server tries to give the players an more active role into how the game evolves and changes;

There is still a bit more work around the Stun effect, otherwise Wargaming believes SPG is going in the right direction based on player feedback;

Sandbox is the new thing where Wargaming can test new things and even upcoming changes so they can get more data and feedback. Wargaming is already thinking on re balancing some of the new Tier X LT because of player feedback ( H: Russian LT is way to OP and Chinese LT is under performing, these are two of the LT that will be changed based on data from the Sandbox);

Russian LT is way to OP and Chinese LT is under performing, these are two of the LT that will be changed based on data from the Sandbox); Supertest and Common Test is good to get huge amount of data about new features, but its way to late change or even cancel some of them. Sandbox Server is used to complement these two other tests, so Wargaming can get critical information sooner;

The Developers read players feedback on the Sandbox Server, and they got a team that feeds all this information back to them;

Wargaming believes three SPG’s per team is the right balance;

SPG’s will not be able to nuke anymore;

There is a general dislike for SPG from players who play with it because they are not fun to play, and from players who play against them because they could get nuked by it;

SPG will have a more specialized support role;

Wargaming has to factor LT and SPG changes and make sure they are good to the game;

Wargaming is very careful on what happens to other classes/tanks when these changes are introduced;

Wargaming is aware the Stun effect can be a bit annoying, reason why they decided to introduce the multi use consumables;

The multi use consumable will drastically change the game, but there is still some strategy behind how players will use them;

Wargaming decided to introduce Tier X Ranked Battles because there isn’t any real endgame mode if you are not in a clan;

Wargaming is going to work on old/classic maps so they can come back to the game, for example Port and Dragon Ridge;

Wargaming will balance between updating existing maps to new graphics, improve these maps and work on new maps;

Wargaming is using heat maps from the live server so they understand what is wrong with each map in order to improve them;

When creating new maps, Wargaming uses data from other maps to understand what they did wrong and what players like;

Night, Weather and Visibility effects is not a priority at the moment. ATM Wargaming is focused on new graphics and after this is implemented, they will start looking into weather effects, etc.

RNG has it’s space in the game and it varies a lot but the average RNG seen is about 10%. Wargaming might look into RNG values in the future but it’s not on their “soon” list.

RNG is part of the game and essential so it’s not a “sim”;

Wargaming acknowledges SPG needs fixing, but removing it from the game it’s not an option;

SPG it’s essential to prevent people to “camp” in a position, but at the moment it’s so good at doing this, that punishes players who dare to push;

Wargaming thinks XVM is good for somethings and bad for others, for example it’s good for knowing how well players are doing with some tanks, but not so good with Lights for example.

Wargaming admits XVM gives information that they are missing from their side and they might address this;

XVM Win Rate predictor is wildly off, Wargaming looked into the data and concluded that is wrong most of the times.

Ranked Battles is part of and end game experience;

Skill based matchmaking is not good for Random Battles, but it will be introduced for Ranked Battles;

Ranked Battles will be made of ladders and each time the player goes up the rank, they will be matched against higher skilled players;

Ranked Battles it’s not just for players on Clans, it’s actually designed for lone players who want to play with Tier X tanks;

Players who are in the losing team, if they finish on Top 3 of their team, they will still be rewarded;

Players on the last 3 positions of the losing team will lose progression;

Ranked Battles is not in the near future, there isn’t any dates for when it will be released, but it will be after Light Tanks and New Matchmaker;

Ranked Battles will most likely not be tested on Sandbox;

First Season of Ranked Battles will be an Alpha Version, so Wargaming can test what is right or what it needs fixing;

Wargaming has currently a lot of resources currently working on the new map graphics;

Wargaming plans to release all maps in a very short period of time;

Maps are not bigger, but the outland has changed creating an effect that maps are bigger;

In terms of performance, if players are able to play the game on current minimal graphics, they will still be able to play with the new maps and shouldn’t notice any changes in the performance;

Ranked Battles will not be available 24 hours a day, but there will be a time frame within the day where players will be able to play them;

Wargaming is not ready to disclosure a date for the new graphics, but it should be soonish;

Wargaming is currently discussing bigger maps and there might be news in the upcoming weeks about it;

There will be new lines in 2017, but Wargaming will not share any information just yet;

Wargaming doesn’t want to introduce new tanks that are just a copy of existing tanks;

Wargaming uses an internal graphics engine called Core 5.0;

Multi-core CPU/GPU support is not coming right now to the game;

Female Crew voices are being worked on at the moment;

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