Commanders!

We would once again like to thank you for participating in our Balance 2.0 Public Test Server and for all the constructive feedback you have posted. We know that everyone is hungry for information and we want to share what we, as the developer team, are currently thinking and working on implementing as we continue testing Balance 2.0 with everyone.

We are excited to announce that more articles addressing feedback and ongoing work on Balance 2.0 will continue to be published after this one! We are planning to have Developer Q&A sessions in the future as well as more updates on feedback and development.

In this first article, we would like to answer some of the questions raised by you, the testers, and let you know that all your feedback is being heard and considered. But first, we’d like to let everyone know that development is still going strong! Our key goal is to avoid any significant delays and follow the release plan that was confirmed during the transition period. The plan includes:

More vehicles

More maps

Improvements to existing systems

We’ll continue to fill you in on our plans for 2017 in the near future, but first, let’s get to the essentials.

Balance 2.0 Feedback So Far

Our developers have weighed in on all the constructive feedback brought by the recent Public Test Server sessions and internal testing. Please remember that while we share our thoughts on the feedback in these articles that the final product is still under development and is subject to tweaks and changes. We are happy to have this kind of open communication with articles like these.

Feedback: The spotting system on PTS felt wonky with vehicles appearing instantly at maximum distances. Are there any plans to improve it?

We are planning to introduce several changes to the Spotting System in order to accentuate vehicle roles better.

For starters, we will slightly increase the viewrange for vehicles expected to act as spotters. We will also introduce a slow progression of viewrange increases matching technological advancements. The top viewrange will shift from the current 400-420 meters to 450-460 meters. We will also introduce some smaller improvements to spotting retrofits and add the option to unlock them in the appropriate tech lines.

Light Tanks (that are intended to spot while moving) will receive retrofits buffing viewrange on the move while AFVs will focus more on passive scouting. Altogether, these changes will lead to a better sense of progression without having MBTs feel blind.

As for the issue of vehicles instantly appearing, we are planning to introduce two mechanisms to mitigate that:

We’ll re-introduce a shorter version of the period where – upon losing spotting contact – the vehicle silhouette disappears but the model is still visible. The time period will be very short (approximately 1 second) but it will lead to the better understanding that the target will disappear soon

We’ll increase the delay between getting spotted and the “spotted” icon appearing to approximately 2.5 seconds in order to reduce the effectiveness of various “peek out – spotted icon appears – hide again” tactics.

Our goal is to introduce an intuitive spotting system without the often-criticized “disappearing tank” side-effects that will, at the same time, support sniping without excessive passive gameplay (also known as “camping”) all across the board.

More Feedback (Click to Open) Feedback: Are you planning to fine-tune ammunition types further? Yes – we are planning to improve kinetic and HEAT rounds by improving their damage bonuses as follows: AP: +15% bonus damage when penetrating armor thicker than 100mm – improved to +20%

+15% bonus damage when penetrating armor thicker than 100mm – improved to +20% HEAT: +15% bonus damage when penetrating armor thinner than 100mm – improved to +20% Some advanced high-Tier ammunitions may have this bonus increased even further. The reason for this improvement is to make proper ammunition selection a major gameplay element and to reduce HESH as the obvious ammunition choice. We will also improve interface feedback so that every player has the opportunity to better understand what happened upon impact. Overall, we will also carefully analyze future test results to make sure that no type of ammunition is overpowered. Feedback: Falling and ramming damage is too high. The damage calculation itself is something we will look into but we do believe that the issue will be fixed by correcting the bugs that cause excessive damage of this type. Feedback: Early Tier MBTs feel too slow! We are planning to slightly improve the mobility of lower Tier MBTs along with appropriate accuracy adjustments. It’s not our goal to have MBTs of any Tier extremely accurate on the move – that’s something reserved for Light Tanks. Feedback: High Tier MBTs do not play well – they are too sluggish, fire too slow and the frontal armor is unreliable. We will overhaul the existing Tier 9 and Tier 10 vehicles. We are aiming at removing the “pixel hunting” but their armor should generally still be reliable at the same time. Feedback: What about autocannon gameplay? Autocannons feel useless, especially at high Tiers. We’ll be improving the clip size by 30 to 70 percent (depending on how much the vehicle is relying on it overall) in order to increase their overall damage output. This should roughly put autocannon AFVs on par with MBTs but it is not our intention to make autocannons destroy a target with one clip. Feedback: Have you decided on the fate of Artillery in Update 0.19? We are still evaluating our options based on your feedback. These options include: Rebalance current 0.19 direct fire artillery

Remove these vehicles altogether

Make it an indirect fire class limited to PvE only (please note that the AI-controlled artillery would be removed in such a case)

Convert it to a pure “support” class by giving it more utility options at the expense of damage

Replace artillery with a call-in (possibly a consumable) Some of these options (especially the last two) would not be ready for Update 0.19 – in such a case the artillery class and vehicles would be removed completely and the vehicles’ costs compensated to players in full. We will run a wide survey in the future to help us determine the artillery’s fate. Feedback: Are there any plans for specific vehicles? Absolutely – we are planning numerous changes, including: Fixing the invulnerable Chieftain 900 armor

Improving and fixing the T-80U

Reducing the burst potential of multiple ATGM launcher vehicles such as the Terminator series

Removing the salvo autoloader from T-90MS

Stock T-14 Armata will no longer have the salvo autoloader, it will be an unlockable module, which will introduce this feature at the cost of overall DPM

Fixing T-14 Armata armor overall

XM1A3 Abrams will get special AP and HEAT rounds with +35% damage bonus instead of +20% to further encourage proper ammunition selection Feedback: And last but not least – are there any plans for end-game modes in the future? Yes! We are planning to develop Lords of War as a competitive mode (including special Battalion gameplay). In the future, we will also add a Battalion Wars mode.

Beyond Update 0.19

The release of Balance 2.0 currently has the highest priority. Our plan is to tweak and fix the outstanding issues in order to deliver it to you as fast as possible. Balance 2.0 will be a sound foundation of Armored Warfare and we firmly believe it will improve the gameplay. Update 0.19 is the first major step of Balance 2.0 – we will be introducing more improvements in the following update.

We would like to thank you again for your patience and feedback! It really helps us make Armored Warfare the awesome game you deserve. Stay tuned for more development information and plans for the future!

We’ll see you on the battlefield!