Purpose of this blog

Dmitry Yudo aka Overlord, jack of all trades
David Lister aka Listy, Freelancer and Volunteer

Saturday, December 29, 2012

[WoT] On SPGs and MMing

Too many SPGs in battles is one of the persistent issues in WoT. It does affect the gameplay and can change the perception of the entire game.

Additional match-making requirements that are already live on RU servers and pending implementation worldwide are the following:

5 SPGs per team is a so called semi-hard cap which means 5 is maximum number of SPGs per team if the battle is created correctly, ie without any errors. The prerequisites for that are relatively high CCU (that's why might be somewhat hard for NA server) and no particular imbalance or disproportion between vehicle classes in waiting queue.

In addtion to the above the SPG-cap for high tier battles is floating and varies from 2 to 5 arty units per team.

Simplifying things, battles are created by the server in succession with different SPG limits: 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc

For lower tiers the limits are a bit different and depend on the average SPG percentage for that particular battle tier.

Such matchmaking adjustment will increase waiting time in queue for all tanks:
- for tanks/TDs the increase is going to be relatively small - up to a few seconds (under normal conditions)
- for SPGs the increase is going to be more noticeable - up to 30-60 seconds in worst cases.

The cap mechanics was chosen taking into account possible increase of waiting time. The harder the cap and the more restrictions, the longer waiting times. Especially for less-populated servers (on single RU cluster there can be 140-200k players)

190 comments:

  1. Arty was introduced to avoid camping...but only because of arty everyone camps...

    There is some logical mismatch :D

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    1. Tell it arty players. Many clearly avoid shooting at heavys and hunt easy targets. Not long ago I was in my Stug some meters behind KV. Still Grille shot at me. At the end of the battle enemy had 3 vehicles and we 4. Those 3 were artys (all with many kills), while we had still all our heavies alive and one arty. Of course we won.

      Not long ago had similar situation in PzIV, when I was lowest tier in team full of tier VII heavies. I asked those arty player why he shot at me and not at the heavies. He answered that he makes to low damage to heavies and he need many hits to get kill... (so oneshoting lowest tier medium was better fun).

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    2. If you can remove one enemy gun with one shot, that might not be the worst of ideas? ;)

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    3. Or it could be that the Grille overshot the KV and hit you unintentionally. Or maybe he aimed between you two to be able to hit just either of you.

      In case of the PzIV battle, he might have had a shell with so low damage that the thicker armor of heavy tanks would eat all or most of his damage output.

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    4. It's also reasonable to hunt down Frenchies who are vulnerable to roof-hits.

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    5. Well, IIRC only tank with not that weak roof is Maus, every other have around 40mm-50mm making it quite easy to punch through by T6+ arty. And it kinda defeat purpose of armor, why taking (for example) JgPz E-100 over Foch, when both are equally vulnerable to arty, while latter CAN evade incoming arty fire?

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    6. @ Anders and Mikk, yes sure, all heavies survived battle only because artys were missing them or decided that other tanks were more dangerous then top heavy tanks :)

      And those KV was so far in front of me and aside that surely it wasnt missed shot.

      In case of Panzer IV I was oneshoted by M41. Yes he has no chance to damage Tiger or T29...

      And this are just examples of artys avoiding to shoot heavies, and they avoid them cause they are hardest to damage. Seen many times artys shooting at totally undengerous tanks - some slow low tiers, while there were more important targets surely visible. I had also noticed many times artys comming me with "help" after I made 90 prc of damage to enemy (sometimes even damaging me).

      So I always laugh, when I see comments that artys are in that game to fight heavy tanks. Many of them just focus on hunting easy targets.

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    7. That's also how i used to play arty before i sold them all.
      (Big) tanks with weak armor first, especially tank destroyers and french tanks. They just take more damage per shot. And i think most arties play this way.

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    8. I've always found that arties are the most effective counter to TDs, while TD's are the best counter for heavies. Though heavies are usually still good targets due to being big and slow. But as pointed out by others, I may not go for them right away when playing arty due to the number of shots they take. With the low ROF and poor accuracy of most higher tier SPGs having to spend multiple shots on one target can actually work against you in the long run compared to taking out 3 softer targets that also have good damage potential.

      That's why I'd choose a PzIV over a KV for sure as an arty player in that match. PzIV can be just as lethal as a KV if left alive, but it can be taken out in 1 hit while the KV will likely take 4. Eliminating the damage output of the PzIV immediately before going to work on the KV clearly helps my team out more in the long run.

      And with the long aim in times for tier 5+ arty you're more likely to be more productive by shooting at whatever you're aimed in on NOW than if you take the time to shift to a more "optimal" target and shoot later. You can always aim in on that one while reloading from the shot you took on the first target, and if you lost spotting while aiming in so you couldn't take the shot then shifting targets does nothing but waste time and lose potential damage output.

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  2. So the cap limit for arty in T10 will be 5 pr. side?

    Or am I misunderstanding something?

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    Replies
    1. However it's not a hard cap. See above.

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    2. "5 SPGs per team is a so called semi-hard cap which means 5 is maximum number of SPGs per team if the battle is created correctly" This is exactly the matches we the players hate, cap should be a hard limit of 2 pr team.

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    3. Simply put, the cap varies from battle to battle (up to a max of 5)?

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    4. Which is too much, hard cap at 2

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    5. 5 pr side is the problem we have had for the last few months. :) So yes, 5 if too much. Hard cap should be 3 at all times IMO.

      But lets see how it works before we start whineing. ;)

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    6. 007 Kenny,

      hard cap at 2 will make SPGs to wait for battle a few minutes. Can be even up to 10 during low CCU times. It's not acceptable.

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    7. Anders.

      5 per side is not a major issue, tho it can be too much. The aim is to avoid matches spammed with SPGs, in worst case scenario there were 20+ arty units in one battle.

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    8. "Can be even up to 10 during low CCU times. It's not acceptable." So its not acceptable to make artillery players wait but it is perfectly acceptable to generate matches that make players hate artillery. Good logic...

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    9. When i see the post's number about arty party think "arty party" come often... I play much battle and i often got 10/12 arty on battle.
      U think wait for arty player isn't acceptable but nerf it is...and don't stop player to use them.
      With some arty party we can have some battle without any arty or just 2...Why you don't test for 1 week an update to limit at 3/team/battle...Not in test server cause it's not realistic but in normal server???

      So much player stop wot at holiday(or definitively stop, think soon for me) cause we don't support anymore afk,bot,arty party with the low level player...and we always wait for normal battle...Some nerf isn't the solution. 5 max? Just a joke...

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    10. Just remove the god-mode cannon altogether, problem solved. I remember watching a WOT developer on youtube telling us that they don't want to introduce smoothbore cannon because they can shoot at very long distances and it would be cheat... but nevermind artillery that can fire using a satellite view in the whole map. Good logic.

      5 per side is just excesive. 2 is too much. 1 is annoying. 0 is good.

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    11. So what, they also struggle enough as well as others.

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  3. What is this server fail ?
    The main EU server was simply disconnected\shut down or ?

    Also good news about arty , Let them wait and suffer in the queue :)

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    Replies
    1. Technical failure. Will be up soon.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. We would like also to see same MMing for TDs ...
      After all we want to see less as possible TDs and Arties because they are marginal compared to heavy\medium classes .

      And for soviet tanks minimum 1 day waiting in queue by default .

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    4. TDs require a line of sight to shoot while arty can shoot and still be safe.

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    5. I dont see the point in putting a hardcap on TD´s. :)

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    6. David Diamond,

      you obviously need to develop some love towards Soviets.

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    7. TDs deal about 750-1k damage per shot . (tier 10-9)
      Almost the same damage as arty can deal in one H.E. hit
      Those guns and this firepower should be decreased for each team to give some time for tactics and strategy in the battlefield . Not just only camping in the forest or in the hill and be afraid from 1k damage shot that comes from invisible TD ..

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    8. Overlord ,

      Do you really expect me to like those EASTERN wicked soviets ? Never ever . Invaders of Europe !

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    9. I might think the same about germans and russians both, but I don't come to the internet moaning about that.

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    10. David Diamond,

      I feel for your attitude.

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    11. What about gathering teams by speaking language ? then we will really be able to make some teamwork , Otherwise It is almost impossible to make any plans in chat .
      And nobody cares about the F7 or F3 buttons ..

      When the bug of the wrong "penetration" messages will be fixed ?

      So what with the 0 damage ? WG really does not want to fix this ?

      Delete
    12. "What about gathering teams by speaking language ? then we will really be able to make some teamwork "

      Do you really believe that there is no teamwork in randoms only because of language barrier??

      Language has almost nothing to do with that. Good players can cooperate without talking using only F keys (or even without that, they just know what shall be done). I had sometimes battles with RU teammates on tests, where I had much better teamwork then with many EU players, who knew English, but did not use brain during battle nad are afraid to get hit or suicide.

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    13. Dead_Skin_Mask,

      agree. Language is important, but it's not a prerequisite to team cooperation in WoT. RU and NA servers have liitle to no language difference, but still the level of teamplay can be quite random.

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    14. David Diamond,

      getting somehow rid of "0 dmg" thing is mid-term plans for 2013.

      Delete
    15. Then which another way you suggest to improve the teamwork ? IQ tests for <1000 eff players ?!

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    16. IQ test and strategy test before playing first battle :) (no go for WG for obvious reasons).

      The only chance are well designed tutorials, but they are hard to do, resource consuming and people love to skip them.

      We have incredible influx of fresh players. I recently have usually teams full of people with low experience (small amount of battles). They just do not know that game and do not understand they role in battles. Thanks to some changes WG made, they are now getting faster better tanks (when I was making first line low tiers were much more expensive in credits and XP) and they are still newbies, when they reach higher tiers. You can't made them to play good. The only thing you can do is have fun in killing them, when they are red, and trying to teach, when they are green. Of course those teaching almost never give effects, but miracles can happen.

      Once newbie in Lowe (400 battles only!) was last tank in our team apart from two arties. His first idea, when he realized that camping longer is not good idea, was going to cap enemy base, where he would be killed in half a minute (Redshire, 3 enemy tanks sitting on hill), Then I reacted, and told him not to go to cap and he listened. So I started to write him what to do and he was doing exactly what I said, thanks to that he killed one enemy on that hill and spotted others so artys killed them. But in most cases they do not listen. And it is not a problem of language barrier. Those players just would not listen.

      They think that they are super pro and they know everything better, for example they know that they have 45 win ratio only because they had bad teammates and they also are sure that those players who have more then 50 prc win ratio are bigger noobs then they and their good stats were made only thanks to buying gold.

      So if you can't accept those bad teamplay you must play only companies and CW. I do not expect any positive change in randoms, negative change is more possible cause there is coming more and more fresh players.

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    17. @Dead_Skin_Mask , you gave here a golden post .

      I knew those issues (newbies and unskilled on high tiers and about the fresh players from adverts..)

      But i think that there is still a good way to improve the teamwork .

      1) Not just XVM mod , But WG should show to each player his efficiency at battle time in same xvm's scheme , Then he would know if he is pro or just a newbie\unskilled player who simply should listen to his (more) skilled teammates' commands .

      2) Player with less than 47.5% win ratio can play only in low tiers (up to tier 5) , 49% up to tier 7 .

      3) Only players with high eff (1400 or more) can drive tier 9 and 10 shining cars .

      This is my conclusion . If these conditions will be executed by WG , The teamwork will finally appear in the battlefield !

      Delete
    18. Another great concept !

      If the player played a TIER-5 and higher tiers , then :

      * if he got less than 700 eff he will get +100% repair costs

      * if he got less than 850 eff he will get +50% repair costs

      * if he got less than 1000 eff , will get +35% repair costs

      * if he got less than 1100 eff , will get +15% repair costs

      * if he got less than 1300 eff , will get +5% repair costs

      Final solution , The +% for repair costs will be explained in the after battle stats under the title "Unskilled-On-High-Tier-%eff%!"

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    19. What is wrong with 0-damage hits?

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    20. @Zoltán Tóth ,
      They are still alive , Didn't you noticed ?

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    21. And what then? A lot of things do not hurt either, for example if i miss, bounce, ricochet, ... .

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    22. I am talking about penetration hits .

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  4. so you took more or less my proposal, but you obviously didn´t take my 2nd one to distribute scouts in the same way. ;)

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  5. Overlord...the EU Server is down :(

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    Replies
    1. Yup, sorry for inconvenience. Temporary issues. It's up now.

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  6. I still will not play my tier IX and X tanks. Will wait for nerfs in 0.8.3 and watch if there are any changes in number of arties.

    But I am surprised that you nerf all arties. The problem is only in top tiers (IX and X). I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make splash range smaller in the biggest guns (or make damage made by splash much lower) . For me it is most annoying in top artys - they can miss all the time and still deal me 500-600 hp damage, kill crew, detrack, damage modules. It is very annoying. In my last battle with tier X I was killed, while I was hit 0 times! Still I lost most modules, almost all crew (driver died 2 times) and was detracked 3 times. Mega nonsence for me.

    I also have seen many times arty players comments that "arty is fine cause even with missed shot I can make damage and there is almost no bounces and zero dmg penetrations".

    @ Vipez

    I believe that it was rather introduced to give light tanks some job. Old argument with paper, rock and scissors is not so convincing for me, cause we have also TD's which are enough to make heavy tanks life very difficult.

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    1. Nefing splash wont solve anything. The object 261 and Bat Chatillon 155 will still rape you. ;)

      We just need more maps with a better balance between cover an open field.

      Playing my E-100 or Jpze100 on a map like sand river is simply hell. :/

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    2. Balancing adjustments will definitely help. The question is to what extent.

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    3. As I found out from Silentslaker thread there were made in 0.8.3 some changes in splash range (in top arties it will be slightly smaller). So not only I see that splash was part of problem :)

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  7. Up to 5 arty on each side is way too much... We'll have to see if the distribution gets better, but this doesn't seem like an improvement unless you are the lucky one to catch every 4th or 5th game with max 2-3 arty

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    Replies
    1. No. It's an improvement. It decreases the probability of getting MMing failures - battles spammed with SPGs.

      Delete
  8. Hi Overlord,

    Over the Christmas special I relly liked the xp for medals bonus. Could we have something like this perminantly?

    Though with 2 editions alter the scout medal to reduce suicide scouting, and also add the details to the small notification you get after battle so its a bit more noticable.

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    Replies
    1. I have some serious doubts that such specials / bonuses can incentivize team play and rational behaviour. If the can't, there is no need to have them permanently.

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    2. So? Why not remove them from the game altogether?

      Small bonus's would be nice for the same reason they are in game, fun & interest.

      At the end of the day noobs got to noob, it's simply to late to teach them, hell you have a system where you can lose your way to tier x, it's actually shocking how bad tier x players can be and usually are. But its to late to do anything about it. They are not going to improve without someone there telling them what they are doing wrong, its simply not practical.

      Best you could do is in game youtube style mechanic/tank/map tutorials, with some offline npc tests (cross from one side of the map to the other without being seen etc) which you have to go though before using the next tier up.

      Also What you could do is introduce new more "elitist" modes force you to earn tanks, and will actually take them off you if you play consistantly terribly.

      - no you can't have your shiny new tank till you stop playing shit

      However it take alot of resources to create such things. You'd have to stop pumping endless fantasy tanks into the game.

      Delete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. I would like the limit to work this way.
    Do not simly limit max number of arty, but do it individually for every tier for every battle tier:
    e.g. tier 12 battle - max 3xt8 + 1xt7 arty,
    tier 11 battle - max 2xt8 + 2xt7 arty, ...
    It would require a bit more work to do but hopefully you will go even deeper and do more sophisticated matchmaking than this one.

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    Replies
    1. More work is not a problem. Problem is that we don't want to piss off like a quarter of players (SPGs) by having them wait a few minutes in the queue.

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    2. A curious statement seeing as you are quite happy annoying the same by dint of the nerf that is incoming in 8.3 :)

      Any thoughts on what to do about the over-large numbers of scouts now being reported in some higher-tier matches.

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    3. Better to piss off 1/4 than pissing off 3/4.
      Remove arty from game or allow us to opt out arty.

      Delete
    4. I would GLADLY wait a few minutes with my Tier 9/10 TANK (not even arty) every single match to have a reliable 2 arty hardcap.

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    5. 2 arty per side maximum. If they want to play god-mode and kill people with impunity from the other side of the map while being at NO RISK AT ALL themselves, then they can damn well wait to do so. Arty causes almost all camping because nobody wants to venture out of cover when they know they can be annihilated or at the very least rendered ineffective in one hit by someone against whom they never had a chance to fight back. Arty causes camping. ARTY CAUSES CAMPING. This is a plain truth that WG seem very reluctant to face.

      And here's another one: players HATE arty. You always, without fail, see people going "Yay, no arty" or words to that effect on the all-too-rare occasions when a match isn't blighted by arty; you never, ever, EVER see anyone going "yay, lots of arty" on the all-too-common occasions when a match is blighted by lots of arty. You WILL see a lot of complaining about it, though. This tells you straight away how (un)popular arty is with the majority of the playerbase.

      "allow us to opt out arty" - YES! Introduce the option of a 'no arty' game mode, see how many choose to play without arty altogether.

      Ascender - me too, though it'd be far better if we could just tick a 'No Artillery' box in the Settings menu, right?


      And Overlord - if the original idea behind idea arty was "To combat heavies mostly", then the proliferation of trollammo in the current 'experiment' is already doing a bang-up job of making armour pointless - i.e. combating heavies. So, are you going to get rid of trollammo? Or arty? Or is the idea simply to make heavy tanks utterly unplayable nowadays? Something has to give. Get rid of ridiculous trollammo so the game is actually balanced again (you actually had it about right in 8.0 with the armour normalisation) and give us a 'no arty' option so players have the option of Unstoppable Finger Of God or not. Those two changes would be a massive, MASSIVE improvement to the game as a whole and loudly welcomed by the playerbase as a whole.

      Delete
    6. Warstore,

      3/4? You must be kidding. 1-2% of the most loud ones at best.

      Delete
    7. Ascender,

      in this respect you are an exception. Many are not ready to wait for a long time.

      Delete
    8. svartmetall,

      sorry, but sounds like a rant. Played 20 battles today. Never killed by any SPG, never had any similar issue.

      Delete
    9. Overlord, why not just allowing players choosing a game mod called "no arty" ? it will just be the most played game mod in few days. And arty players will be so happy to play 15 arty vs 15, to see how it feels to be arty spammed.

      Delete
    10. It will increase the load on the main standard battles forcing SPGs to wait for several minutes.

      And if meds wanted to play without heavies?

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    11. "And if meds wanted to play without heavies?"

      That's a strawman 'argument' at best, nobody else here is proposing that. The whole point is that everyone in the game apart from arty has to be in line of sight - i.e. in harm's way themselves - to deal any damage. Arty has the unique capability of killing people with total impunity while never being at risk themselves, and people HATE it. A 'No Artillery' game mode option is the most sane choice - you've already done it for Assault and Encounter game modes, so why won't you do it for arty?

      And if you're going to claim "Played 20 battles today. Never killed by any SPG..." then it sounds like you already HAVE a 'No Artillery' game mode available to you, since you're obviously not playing the same game as the rest of us.

      Delete
    12. Overlord , It is different ! Arties are more annoying than heavies . And anybody says the same !

      A battle without arty , is fun , less rage , high tiers won't pay 30k credits for death by one-hit from OPed arties .

      Arty players know that other classes prefer to not play with them in a battle . it is more fun for every body to play without arty .

      arties is also complaining about the traces of their shots that can be detected by another "Satellite-Supported" arties and being destroyed without even being detected by any scouter .

      You have done many things *intentionally* to make players raging . And does not matter which class or tank , all classes have cons especially to make the game more *invidious* .

      WE both know that arties are designed to make the game react faster . Again , it is designed in order to make more games created per minute by the MM , So this is better for your(WG's) economy , but this is EVIL !

      Your blogger icon means "justice" .. but your development team is exactly the opposite . Everything shows the GREED of WarGaming ! what a shame !

      And i know that your answer will ignore almost all my text , Because this is simply the truth that your team have nothing to say against . And you as a Game Designer wont try to influence the team to change anything for the community . (because it is fine for you yes ..)

      These polls are also useless . You are not even care about player's cretinism anyway , Good job .

      Delete
    13. Aye, all developers are greedy and evil by default. That is axiomatic.

      Delete
    14. Excuse me sir , But you are completely wrong .
      Atleast me and many of my friends are developers and we aren't evil nor greedy .

      It is all about the education and the morality of the leaders and managers . Nothing else .

      It is most likely that team of developers who came from penurious background may be greedy if they would control in a future any capitalism business . And yes , this is what i do think about WarGaming.NET .

      Just did not saw the same greediness from Blizzard , EA , Dice , BioWare and many others ..

      Delete
    15. Svartmetall are you insane?

      Arty is what makes WoT a game where thinking matters!

      Arty is neccessary to fight of TD's (unless you like being shot down by invisible bushes), arty makes sense of introducing light tanks and to some extent mediums, finally arty is the only one thing that allows you to break organised camp.

      No arty mode = camping tds most of the time.
      Best games if I play HT or MT are with 3-4 arties. If I play arty best games are with 1 or 2. when I play TD i want no arty and when I play scout I want 5 per side.
      If you die a lot from arty and your own arty doesnt help it means you don't know how too play wot.


      Next patch changes are stupid. Big splash is neccessary to eliminate tanks dug out somewhere behind building/rock, without it stalemates will be more often - stalemates when 2 tanks look at each other and who will go first will die.

      And lower mobility and HP will completely change the balance for CW and ESL competitions - but who cares about that?

      Delete
    16. David Diamond,

      aye, tell me how all of those are 100% altruistic. You might want to read some for feedback from consumer base, eg gamespot or smth of the kind.

      Delete
    17. Gorzki,

      @And lower mobility and HP will completely change the balance for CW and ESL competitions - but who cares about that?@

      Those also periodically need some shake-up, don't they?

      Delete
  11. Decrease the range the high tier arties can shoot. In low tier battles the arty has to relocate closer to the front line to be able to shoot anything. Makes them more vurnerable too. Me likes.

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  12. make track immune to HE, problem solved...

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  13. I think this "solution" is more likely to increase the problem. For me it doesn't matter if i have 5 arties or 10 against me, the only difference is that in the second case the better enemy arty player will get the kill because he can shoot half a second earlier. Even three arties are enough to rape everything that is spotted (with very few exceptions). So overall you decrease the competition between a teams arty players but increase the damage taken by normal tanks.
    I can only see two ways out:
    1. remove/nerf arty
    2. new gamemode for arties only (like Scorched 3D)

    ReplyDelete
  14. noobs whining about arti ... guys you have no idea how op arti was in beta. Now it is a joke especially the accuracy - the random factor their is much to high.

    The only problem atm is number which is to high and I m saying this as an arti player who has every t8 arti in his garage + some fun parts like Grille and GW-Panther.

    Solutions:

    - arti cap in high tier battles, max 3x t7 or t8 arti per team
    longer waiting time in queue is fine

    - fix arti matchmaking: 1x t8 vs 2x t7 in the other team is far from balanced: This also includes scouts and meds. One teams get T50-2 the other doesn’t, same goes for batchat and T62/T54 … an E50M or M48 isn’t up to the task to “counter these mediums” as spotters for enemy artis in most cases/maps

    - Matchmaker has problems with arti platoons → no more arti platoons or at least reduce the max number to 2 artis per platoon

    - bring back old tracer system (survival of the fittest -> noobs get countered all the time and they will stop playing

    - reward countering enemy arti (successful countering brings for example 2x XP and credits if enemy arti wasn't lit up for 15 sec)

    - give the S-51 an other top gun or nerf its mobility levels to SU-14 values. Atm this is the most overpowered “mid" tier arti in the hands of a good arti player.

    - moving current t8 artis to t10 is fine and replacing some in the process

    -not every nation needs an arti tree or an arti tree up to t8 (in future t10)

    - make a longer video tutorial about arti mechanics in general: including penetrating and non penetrating hits with HE and the resulting damage including crew and modules. Many players (even arti players) don't understand it.

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    Replies
    1. - 2 or more enemy artis countered gives a new shiny medal like "Noob Catcher"

      Delete
    2. I have some doubts on some points you stated, mate. Namely the fact that you (but also many other players) seem to assume that the increase of the waiting time is linear with the cap value, which is most likely not true - I bet that if the hardcap was set at 3 per team for ALL the battles, you wouldn't get 2 or 10 mins times, but possibly many times as much. Also, the negative sideeffects (current light tank and platoon infestations) would be THAT much worse (for example, 3-arty platoons would have to wait to be matched with another 3 arty platoon, otherwise one side would have a pretty nasty advantage).

      Secondly, as Storm wrote, the arty flood is not an issue, it's a symptom and the cap is much like treating the fever with antipyretics, while the real issue is pneumonia. By imposing more "fair" MM rules, you'll only screw the whole MM even more (again, see what a rather "light" version of the cap - 5 is quite a benevolent number - did to the light tanks and platoons, both effects were clearly unintended).

      Old tracer system? There was a good reason why it was removed. Besides, a battle where during first minutes one or the other arty team gets killed by counterarty, the "winning" arty team has a clear advantage and can decide the battle by itself (having your own arty while the enemy has none is practically a gamebreaker).

      However, I agree that not every nation needs an artillery tree.

      Delete
    3. Hi Silent! (or am I wrong there?)


      I dont have a problem to wait 2-5 min for an arti game - I really dislike arti parties even though I m an arti player.

      As far as I understand it, WG made it really hard to mess around with the tracers or even impossible. So there is no reason not to bring back the old tracer system. And concerning the advantage - ofc it is one and it worked really god during the whole beta and shortly after release and was a good way to get rid of those guys that play arti with one hand. I didnt even buy the GW-Tiger until 3 weeks before beta ended, because I loved the GW-P so much - ofc arti noobs hated that SPG.
      Take a look at this thread:

      http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/191586-the-short-life-of-an-arti-noob-part-ii-story-in-3-pictures/page__fromsearch__1

      What do you think would happen if guys like the one I shot there, would die on a regular basis within 3 min? They would either stop playing arti completly or be more worried about counterfire to pose a serious thread to enemy tanks. Personally I think they would give up on arti mostly - no more easy mode ... .

      Sadly my russian isnt good enough to read Stroms posts - could you please explain the following part:

      "
      Secondly, as Storm wrote, the arty flood is not an issue, it's a symptom and the cap is much like treating ..."

      Symptom of what?

      Personally I also dont take part in any platoon with more than 1 arti, because I see what problem this often causes for the match maker. So if I could have my way, I would limit the number of arti in platoon even to 1!
      Ofc it can be really fun if you have a second arti and a good medium/scout player with u ...

      Delete
    4. Hey, sorry for not signing the post first, I kinda forgot - glad to hear you recognised me tho :)

      The tracers - I am not sure, but I thought the change actually happened because of the hacks and that's it - if they return it, the hacks will return with them, but I could be wrong.

      What I would think about those "noob arty" guys - well, considering there is no skill MM, following would happen: one team would get let's say 3 pro's who know what they are doing, the other team gets 3 noobs, noobs get counterarted and killed and now the first team has three quality arties - and all this could happen before the regular tanks even made contact! You know what kind of mess could 3 pro arties do on the regular tanks, so you can imagine which team would win. The fact 3 pro arties are on one team and 0 on the other (they are dead) is a FACT, that would statistically happen. However, thinking that the noobs would stop playing is an ASSUMPTION, which - although logical - might not even be true, consider the infamous 300ER E-100 driver meme. Such a player dies withing minutes too, there is no reason why such a player would avoid specifically arty - bad players are everywhere and while shooting tanks seems easy enough, the concept of counterartying IMHO evades most of the players.

      The tracer system now is simply a "crutch" for worse players to stay competitive, if they die within a minute (and they would) by counterarty, the disbalance would even greater, there would be even more artywhine from regular tanks, which means more unhappy players etc.

      As for the symptom: Storm wrote the arty flood is not a cause, it's a symptom of arties being in disbalance in comparison to the "regular" tanks. Why are there so many arty players on high tiers? Because it's easier to score kills that way. That's the essential disbalance - remove the disbalance, artyflood will disappear. That is the essential reason behind prolonging the arty to tier 10, they will be easier to balance that way.

      With kind regards
      Silentstalker

      Delete
    5. Silenstalker, you can easily change your Google name :). I had totally other name too, but changed it into the one I use in game.

      Delete
    6. @Silentstalker:

      Sorry I dont get the point you are trying to make with noobarti in one team and proarti in the other.

      First of all it would even out over a greater number battles. The next thing is that it isnt different to the current situation where one team gets a PTS-Platoon as top dogs and the other one will be lead by a "PATO-Squad-of-Fail".

      Delete
    7. To those who accept waiting,

      2-5 minutes (and more) of waiting time is totally unacceptable for online game. This is a 100% no-go, and comes not even from game design, but from basic business requirements.

      Delete
  15. Today that extreme arty-party-MM-phenomena moved into the lights class. Same thing but scouts instead... and not as game wrecking as arty-party.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is likely to be a side-effect of MMing change.

      Delete
    2. Is this change, described in this blogpost, already in effect?

      Delete
    3. Yes it is. :)

      And it will be another 15 days before I can try it out (broken laptop). :(

      Delete
    4. So far, it feels good.
      I'm also happy to see that the matchmaker takes a bit longer to pair up the players, not rushing to take quickly what it can. Playing in platoon yesterday with tanks, not arty, it sometimes took up to 15 seconds to get us a match. That in my mind is a good thing.
      Even got 3 non-arty matches out of 13 that I played.
      I call it a definite improvement.

      Delete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. What happened to MM? Im getting many battles where both teams have 4-5-6 of the same tanks.
    Like i went with KV-1S and both of the teams had 5-6 KV-1S, 3-4 T-150, 3-4 Hellcat...
    Like a tank company battle. Not 1-2 of different tanks, rather 3-6 of the same kind and this goes for both parties.
    I dont remember MM being like this before.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm noticing this, too, but I don't find it to be a problem as such.

      Delete
    2. You bring up a good point. We have such a large variety of vehicles in the game and yet there are but a select few that are used almost exclusively in each of the tier levels of Tank Companies. Might a cap on vehicle type be an option to add a little variety be in order?

      Delete
    3. If there would be a disproprtion between cap and vehicle ratios in waiting queues, such a change would have a very negative impact on waiting times.

      Delete
  18. I like to play as arty, but the one big downside of it is the big exp grind you need, especially from tier 7 to 8. You need around 320K exp for it, that is 100K more than any other heavy tank from tier 9 to 10. And then you don't even get an elite tank for it.
    And in most battles you get killed by scouts which the team just ignored and let through, so you are killed after 1, maybe 2 shots done.
    If on top of that you will also have to wait a few minutes to get into such battles, it would be very frustrating.

    I know it's annoying to get killed by arty, that's why you have to learn how to avoid getting hit by arty, like not driving in a straight line and take cover when you are spotted )having 6th sense on your tank really help for this).
    But besides that, friendly arty really is your friend, if they are not noobs that is. Ever been in a fight while you were alone against 2 enemies, then you would be very happy to know that a friendly arty is there to assist you.

    I am one of those arty players that go for the biggest threat tanks, even if I get called a noob often because of it since I don't get any kills behind my name. but I always laugh at them when I end up on the top of most damage done and most exp earned.

    But yeah, 5 arty still seems to be a bit too much, but it is needed to not give arty such a long waiting in queue time.
    I wouldn't mind waiting a bit, if the exp need for next arty wasn't so big.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Let me introduce a new idea for arty problem. It is called "arty overflow battles". The way it will work is following. You can have hard or semi-hard cap to any number artys / battle. While there will be too many arty's in the queue, they will be put in pure arty battle 15 arty's vs 15 arty's. The advantages are, that no tank/TD player get any penalty and there will not be any extra waiting time to anybody. In this way you could really plan battles in this game as they should be. For example 15% of battles without arty, 15% of battles with 1 arty, 30% with 2 arty, 25% with 3 arty, 10% with 4 arty, 5% with 5 arty. For sure arty players may not like this, but instead of having 3 battles with 5 arty's in both sides ( or constantly) and have many to suffer, this would make only arty to suffer. Actually it could be some fun in those pure arty battles. To create system even more fair, the system could also know that you have been already suffering in pure arty battle, so system would not put you twice for a sort period of time in such a battle. It would also give arty players an clear indication, that there are at the moment, too many arty players in a queue.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
    2. Moderated.

      We have got highly qualified professionals on the team.

      Delete
  20. limit the arty per team to 3 and all will be ok

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Such hard cap is currently not possible. Explained above.

      Delete
    2. not possible means impossible
      this is not true, it's a WG decision not the impossibility of doing it

      Delete
    3. Several minutes of waiting time is too heavy price for that.

      Delete
    4. sais you, but you actually tried to talk to the players and see if they will trade the waiting time for a proper SPG limit/team?

      if the 112 pages of SPG feedback (EU forums) is of any indication to you, they would do it, they would trade off extra time
      try it and see how it goes, then decide if or not; but saying outright it's impossible .....

      Delete
    5. He is right, Zmeul and the players would most likely be wrong even if they answered "yes, it's a price I am willing to pay" - mostly because people in the moment have a wrong reception of time. What seems just fine on the paper ("so I'll wait a minute, so what, I wait 10 mins for a bus every day") would become incredibly horrible in real life... first, second, third battle with 1 minute wait - yea, whatever, maybe. But 300th battle? Half of the team would be AFK the first 5 mins. What a joy.

      Delete
    6. no he's not
      I currently play WarThunder and the queue can stretch from 1minute to 5(!!!)
      and I don't see people crying over it, they still keep coming back and play it

      Delete
    7. Well, true, but War Thunder is in some sort of beta stage, no? Not that many people play it, certainly not 160 thousand at one time... my guess is that current WT people are simply dedicated people, who can get over such a thing. An average player can't. I know I couldn't. Waiting even one whole minute for each battle? Doesn't sound appealing.

      Delete
    8. here is the thing, the more players are the shorter the queue will be
      because there are more possible ways to build the teams

      but so not think for a moment WoT's MM is working on all "cylinders"; the MM has been broken since the very 1st day and it's not the only thing affecting it
      the limit on the number of garage slots is also passively affecting it. players have less choices in tanks and they stick with the money makers
      the economy is also a factor

      Delete
    9. zMe ul, if you remember the beta of WoT, it managed sometimes not find a suitable match at all during the 5 minutes. I've had it a lot of times in the early stages of WoT (back in the day where there were only Soviet and German tanks) and honestly, it's not fun to wait 5 minutes and still have no match or have a match that lasts 3 minutes, for example.
      Honestly, it's kind of useless to argue with you at all, you are not going to change your mind and will keep telling the same story over and over no matter what is changed. If that is fixed, you'll find a new problem to bicker about.

      Delete
    10. @mijj36
      you are delusional, what new problem?
      the MM issue is around since day1(!), same with SPGs, the economy also
      so ... really?!

      Delete
    11. part2
      they fixed what exactly? the zero damage pens, the spotting system? need I go on? check the latest pool overlord made!
      these are not new issues

      Delete
    12. I have to agree on the zero damage pens, it's very annoying, but the matchmaking is rather ok at the moment. It has been a lot worse in the history.

      Delete
    13. i disagree completely with zmeul. I remeber times when you needed to wait for battle, even 1 minute waiting is annoying, 5 minutes is unacceptable.

      The problem with too many arties per side comes from the fact, that tier 8 arty can play only battle tier 11 and 12, while tier 7 arty can play only battle tier 10 and 11.
      you need approx 300k experience on tier 7 to get tier 8.
      and on tier 10 ht you can train your crew using tier 8 premium, while on arty you have to train your crew on arty.

      Reducing the available battle tier would move a lot of arties to lower tiered match (however I imagine a number of whines when KT would be facing t92 or tiger ob. 212) or introducing well earning premium artillery tier 5 or 6 will reduce the amount of t8 arty played.

      nerfing arty is a no go imho, cause it's getting more and more random (which is good for me personally but unfair) and arty gets less and less usefull for competitive gameplay, which is not tested on open tests.

      Delete
    14. zMe ul,

      @sais you, but you actually tried to talk to the players and see if they will trade the waiting time for a proper SPG limit/team?@

      That's a very small % (somewhat 0.0x 0.y) of players you are talking about. All (or most) of those are core players, ie belong to the same group. That sample is not representative at all.

      Delete
    15. zMe ul,

      @I currently play WarThunder and the queue can stretch from 1minute to 5(!!!)@

      So, that's actually one of the reasons I have stopped playing it.

      Delete
  21. someone pls tell me why the t6 soviet spgs have one tier higher gun than any other nation's counterparts? and 5 spgs per side still gonna ruin others game, forcing them to camp.

    ReplyDelete
  22. hey,

    How about taking the arty the ability to shoot while moving, and give them an penalty, of maybe half of their tier, where they aren't allowed to shoot, after they moved or turned their arty!

    Reduce the maximum damage of the artys (with this i mean the damage, when they really pen the enemy)! But dont reduce the damage, when the arty hits a thick armor plate and doesnt pen!

    And please undo the nerfs u did to the AMX AC Mle 1948, because its unplayable with its bad accuracy on the move combined with the long aimtime! Its maybe ok to have a long aimtime, when u have a high damage gun like the ISU got it, but with a low damage gun its only stupid!


    Could you please give us an indicator, that shows you, that your gun is underwater and that you aren´t able to shoot, because lately i had this problem, that my gun was underwater, when i wanted to hit an tank which i pushed into the water!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Any way that the arty cap could be tailored to each server?

    I doubt the non-russian servers have ever had a 15v15 arty battle like I hear the Russian server has had at times.

    Could probably crank it lower for the other servers without increasing wait times for arty, just a thought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Having a few fixed MMing revisions is technically possible, though the problem is that currently it's not clear how to make the algorythm more suitable for a smaller server, cos it has more restrictions than the bigger one.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. This whole thing is supposed to be an experiment anyway so I see no reason to not crank it (the arty cap algorithm) lower for the time being for the non-Russian servers seeing as their player base is smaller than any of the Russian clusters.

      Delete
  24. "Simplifying things, battles are created by the server in succession with different SPG limits: 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc"

    Hmm, does it mean that on average the battle shouldn't have more than 3,5 SPGs - or is it oversimplifying things a bit?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For higher tiers - yes, that is more or less correct.

      Delete
  25. Overlord, why not just allowing players choosing a game mod called "no arty" ? it will just be the most played game mod in few days. And arty players will be so happy to play 15 arty vs 15, to see how it feels to be arty spammed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Copied from above:

      It will increase the load on the main standard battles forcing SPGs to wait for several minutes.

      And if meds wanted to play without heavies?

      Delete
  26. Since early beta test we were shouting that arti was not balanced. Now you have that weird broken soft cap 5 arti per team : it sucks. We need a hard cap for 3 artillery per team MAXIMUM. This is what we were shouting in the forums 2 YEARS AGO. So now have fun with your arti nerf attempts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not many would love to stay in queue for 5 minutes or so.

      Delete
    2. @ Overlord
      I have yet been in a que for 5 mins 3 yes and the MM was screwed.Screenshots have been provided countless times showing u what happens to the MM when goes over 2 minutes. Personally que times are NOT an issue with players they want a Balanced Match. So please stop using the 5 min que as an excuse.

      Delete
  27. Yesterday evening, my buddis and me wanted to play a t9 platoon and had to wait ~45 seconds with 2300 players in queue O.o

    ReplyDelete
  28. Being an arty player myself, the hardcap is something good to have.

    What i don't agree with is the general nerf on the whole line, in particular the splash nerf on the obj 261. As much as the accuracy on chart is good, i find myself missing quite nicely.

    As much as it looks accurate, the fact the shell have a low trajectory means i'll still miss more, and the lack of splash (under 5mt with the nerf)compared to meters more of the other arties (or better trajectory or autoloader for the batchat 155) means that i either hit or deal no damage or an irrelevant amount.

    I don't now of Ovi have any experience with those arties, but still, the fact the splash was nerfed means WG disagree with my point of view.

    And Ovi, since it will be messy later, i wish you a Happy New year, and try to not get too drunk tonight ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excuse me ?!
      Arty nerf (especially on Soviets) was VERY urgent .
      I do think that arties need to get some more difficulties and nerfs .

      Since i played GWPanther and Lor15551 that was so easy to play and poorly-designed and unbalanced gameplay . (and not in test server) i must say that arties should be nerfed twice more to bring the same difficulty of medium and heavy classes .

      Nerf in average damage and distance is still necessary .

      I may call them , Satellite-Supported units with virtually TD's damages and unlimited fire range . (While other classes are limited to 500m)

      And do not speak of accuracy , Because there are some Soviets and French cross-eyed guns .

      Delete
    2. Sorry David, but from your reply it's clear enough you have limited experience with arties. May i see your in game profile?

      You also lack any knowledge of the differences between the 203mm on the S-51/Object 212 and the 180mm on the Object 261, so please, unless you know what you are talking about, spare us biased anti arty reply.

      I have played most arties in game, mostly focused on the russian line, i believe i might have a little more awareness on those than you who didn't play them.

      Delete
    3. Yes you are probably better arty player than me . But from my experiences and tests with the tier 7 french arty and the germans up to tier 6 in the beta , I think that arties needs some serious changes (especially about fire range and damage dealing) and most of them are nerfs at all , which would make them harder to play as any other class (fair , isn't it ?).
      Again , i am not an Soviet arty expert as you are . There is no competition about the knowledge here .

      This is not an "Anti-Arty" post .
      I also playing sometimes with my Lor-155-51 , But i still think that all arties needs redesign and ofcourse NO BUFFS ! (as you suggested).

      Delete
    4. You might also want to realize i wasn't talking about buffs for all arty, but for a single tier 8 ones that imho is the most underperforming one of the tier 8s (the one you didn't play yet).

      Instead, you just jumped on me thinking i was talking for SPGs as a whole.

      Raw damage per se is nothing to be afraid of, as long as the number of arties is limited. Surely this hardcap is better than nothing, but they can't make a lower one because of the MM itself and the waiting time. If you find the example about raw damage on SPGs difficult to follow, you can consider the german tier 10 TD, big alpha right? Now imagine how two rounds would look like, one with say, 2-3 of those, one with 5-6 per side. The conclusion would be that the issue is not the raw damage itself, but the number of tanks in battle capable of dealing that, which is another point for an hardcap and not a nerf.

      It could be that the lower tier arty are easier to play, but i think the top ones are more balanced because they get big repair cost, the only way for me to make a profit on it with premium account is making lot of damage and not dying. But as much as can hit most part of the map, i am also way more team dependant than any other class in game. I can get countered (as much as it can be avoided by moving), the enemy scouts are able to reach me rather easily, and my defence is really mostly in the hands of my team (and we know what does happen in randoms), because i am just not able to nerf myself much.

      Now don't get me wrong, it's good that i can't on my own, but that means i depend on my team, and random teams on the EU server aren't exactly exceptional regarding teamplay. The nerfs they did on the gun traverse for me are irrelevant, if i am moving i am not shooting anyway, if i am turning to face an enemy, it means my team failed to protect me and it's irrelevant if i am going to shoot at the enemy or not.

      Delete
    5. I totally agree .
      My issue is , That there are some classes that harder to play and learn while there are some classes that easier to play and learn . And this is due to damage dealing abilities of each class . (and yes , TDs is the easiest one ! and i got the best ever results in this class regardless that i am an Medium tank player in general)

      Delete
    6. And why i said "especially on Soviets" ? because after my research about the differences between national trees in each class i have got the conclusion that the Soviets are the best damage dealers . So yes , in the average horizon they are easier to play than any other nations . (I am talking about the TDs HTs MTs classes)

      Notice that they are the smallest in sizes , transmission is always in the back , totally sloped armor , spaced armor in sides , and biggest damage per shot in average (F.Ex KV-1S tier 6 - 390 dmg !).

      From above i was concluded that the SPGs of the Soviet tree are also best damage dealers , but after a while i realized that i was wrong . (According to your post)

      Delete
    7. Sorry David, but now i also think you haven't played much soviets at all.

      Also, my example with TDs wasn't about the class being easier, but about the fact that a lot of classes with high raw damage aren't healty, regardless of them being TDs or SPGs.

      Also, your soviet comparison on tanks about raw damage once again means nothing. Soviet have a lot of other problems people seems to be blind about just because they consider only the damage. For example, while they don't burn from the front like some german tanks does, they do have the ammo rack that takes shots quite nicely, they have long aiming time, they usually have mediocre accuracy and health.

      My suggestion for you is: try more tanks, even on the test server eventually, because it seems you need to play it more before having a clearer picture of balance tech tree wise.

      Delete
    8. I played soviet tanks only in the test server . And i think their tanks supposed to be in close battles , So accuracy and aiming speed does not matter at all for all soviet tanks .

      I did not played a lot soviet tanks (actually i do not have any soviet tank in my garage history , Except in test servers .

      I know their cons , But even with them , it is easier to play in close battle with soviet tank than any other (it's obvious , isn't it ?).

      OT question : Which nations you play the most ? For me is German = British > French > American ! Soviet

      Delete
    9. Here is my profile, should be faster.

      http://worldoftanks.eu/community/accounts/500262268-Pastaiolo/

      Delete
    10. Try use this site :
      http://wot-news.com/index.php/stat/compare/eu
      (Pastaiolo and Octea)

      You can watch more statistics in this section :
      http://wot-news.com/index.php/stat/single/eu

      And if you want to see the real top players press "rating of players from EU Server ..." button .

      BTW , According to this site you got nice profile .

      Delete
    11. @David Diamond
      you wrote
      But from my experiences and tests with the tier 7 french arty and the germans up to tier 6 in the beta

      performance of the arty in beta and in test server has nothing to do with current performance of arty.

      If you base your opinions on such data, you cannot be right.

      Delete
    12. My french tier 7 arty is up to date my dear .
      Loraine 155 51 tier 7 was not in beta . I am talking about the current french arties .
      Germans indeed not the same thing that was in beta .

      Delete
  29. I think a hard cap at 3 arties per battle is possible.
    All the other arty players should just be put in a "arty and scouts-only" battle.
    This way arty wont have to wait forever to get a match and heavy players get what they want.
    If its just not possible for mm to create a 3 hard cap any other way than arty players have to just switch to heavies to not ruin battles.

    5 arties per battle still ruins it for me. Especially in big heavies and slow TDs. Not to speak of the amount of HP less to do on the enemy team.
    An arty has what, around 650hp whereas heavies have around 2000.
    Thats quite a lot. Ruins it in many ways. Let arty players play against themselves! (12 arties per team, rest scouts)

    ReplyDelete
  30. Youve made a serious new problem in T7.
    FIx this : http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8896/shot207.jpg
    http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/6703/shot212d.jpg
    , or you will lose your customers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MMing change side effect, currently investigating this.

      Delete
    2. Thank you for the response. I was a bit harsh and maybe too short on words.

      IMO, having 5 arties in T7 battle together with decent number of scouts is even worse than old arty parties in T10 battles. Main reason for this is that in such battle, arty player can 1 shot almost everything, even some of the T7 heavies. Also there is a side effect of earning less credits and XP(Ive noticed that on my su12244) just because there isn't much HP in the battle to be shot. In one of the screenshots, 12 tanks have less HP together than 3 T8 heavy tanks for example.

      Delete
    3. EDIT: Forgot to mention, battles like these are ended after 3 minutes maximum. It somehow goes into faster shooter games area, and its something we don't expect from this great game, i believe neither do you. :)

      Delete
    4. @Notablogger

      maybe in such battlles arty can 1-shot everything, but do you really consider arty shooting scouts as a viable threat?

      or do you think that arty will shot much in the 3 minutes long battle? especially that arty will focus on destroying enemy arty?

      and finally - is this really a problem that you will get 70% of experience in such battle, if battle takes 1/3rd of a time of a normal battle? so you can play 3 battles in the same time and in 15 minutes of playing wot you will earn twice as much experience.


      I'm not saying scout battles are good thing (even though they can be fun), I'm just saying some of your arguments are invalid.

      Delete
    5. 2nd screenshot battle, all our T7 tanks except me were dead after 1:30. Probably killed by HE-Heat combo. 3 T6 arties in T7 battle supported by OP T5(HEAT) arties are a joke. Ive played T6 arty, it can easily kill every T7 with one good shot,i wouldn't waste my 2000 damage shell on a full speed going scout unless its last resort to save my life. Your first sentence isn't true.

      In those battles there is less than 9000 HP in play per side and no armor at all(for arty standards) Arty doesn't have to shoot much IMO. 3 well placed shots/splash shots per arty and its GG.


      70% experience and how much credits wasted on shells? With some of my vehicles i miss up to 3/4 shots in these battle, trying to hit scouts. These battles are boring,frustrating and above all money sinks. I dont like throwing my money(in this case time/credits). In regular battles your earning is based on your gameplay, in these battles its just random.

      No one gains, neither scouts or arties and especially other types of vehicles.

      Also the skill factor is gone in these battles. You might have spent months in learning how to play better and you end up spotted by a "mindless rusher" and killed by 10 APM arty player. Thats the most disturbing thing, feeling that i can actually make some impact on outcome of battle is completely gone, i can only pray. And i dont consider praying to god for good luck to be a standard part of my gameplay.

      All statements you've displayed are wrong.





      Delete
  31. I dont know exactly why, but the MM have been screwed since christmas providing some very nasty battles... Most of my hi-tier battles was either 4-5 arty or none at all. And most battles were either won or lost 15-3 or similar with huge groups of the same tank all over the place.
    At the same time it took forever to have MM send you into battle??

    ReplyDelete
  32. Things were WAYYYYYYY better before this CHANGES.... Terrible now...

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    Replies
    1. Welcome to World of Tanks by WarTrolling.NET .

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  33. Just make 3-4 MORE urban maps, and players will not be so willing to risk an arty play. On such maps arty is more or less uselss, and most likely will be below any reasonable profit level.

    At the moment people play a LOT of arty not because MM is bad, and not because arty is designed badly ... it's simply because WGaming creates so many open maps, that it's almost like saying "hey arty, here is a shitload of arty-friendly maps for Your fun".

    Make more "closed" and "tight" maps, and Arty will also be less common. A nice theme for "american" landscape would be some sort of a canyon map with several "side cracks" and various kinds of rock shelves and shallow caves. A jungle map (or The Giant Sequoia forrest for north america) with fiant trees that can not be trampled would also do the trick (no tank can bring down a tree that has a trunk 15m in diameter!). On both kinds of maps arty would have either limited firing angles, limited visibility or both!.

    I am 100000% sure, that if there would be at least 30-40% maps that are VERY difficult for arty to play, there would be NO, ABSOLUTLY NO need of any hard or semi-hard caps at all ! :D

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    1. But the CEO's girlfriend likes to play all day arty ..........

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    2. Don't think comments like that and above would increase your employment chances with us.

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    3. @Overlord .

      Excuse me for my audacity . Will stop this kind of feedback as you requested .

      So what do you think about Przemysław's solutions ? They seems to be fine ! Why not perform them ?

      Delete
    4. The current thinking has been to create mixed maps that would be approx equally suitable for all classes. Might change this pattern for future.

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    5. What you offer is not a solution, they need to fix the MM to work and not just sort by tiers. They need to fix the MM so that it can distinguish what a TD and a Tank med heavies and lights and arty and what maps to battle on. . Prevent arty from entering into a urban maps. Look arty players don't like what WG has been doing with the MM as much as regular tankers. Now what they offer is only a half hearted solution. Its apparent that MM issue is here to stay WG doesn't appear to really want to get down and resolve this but to allow it to linger on

      Delete
  34. overlord isn't it possible to make the player to choose (like the "no assault-game mode button" in settings-menu) weather to stay in line (waiting up to 5min) for a limitetd (max 5 SPG's or wait even longer for max 2 SPG's... and so on) SPG game or the normal (like now) MM?

    in this way the usual SPG-victims get a bit more quiet, by having the option to choose. And those who dont want to have to wait all day long, are not infected by this change.

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    Replies
    1. That would basically mean having two separate waiting queues. Imagine this for 25+k NA CCU, the MMing quality will definitely go down, while waiting times - up.

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    2. did you seperated the waiting queues with the "no assault mode" too?? , cause it didnt had any effect (in my eyes) on the waiting times.

      isnt it possible to modified the "no assault mode" untill there is only the radom matches in "standart mode" with the new MM(less arty)?? and the "counter assault" and "assault mode" gets more arty coz they are very helpfull in these 2 modes (in my opinion).

      are there any problems with this idea ??

      Delete
  35. Why you don't introduce more maps like himersdorf and only open maps? Also why you don't limit 4 arty per team max 8 per battle?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Recently we have been doing mixed maps that can be approx equally suitable for all classes.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. See previous replies regarding hard caps.

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    4. lol if there are more city maps the arty´s simple play in td-mode and kill all tanks because WG allows them to fire while moving and in non arty mode!

      and himmelsdorf is way to open to be artysave make a map where the longest street is 50 meter long and on non city maps the stones, hills have to be way higher and with less open field where u have to camp because the next stone is 300 meters away!

      and take them away the f.. gold ammo becuase it cant be that a hummel can hit me twice with heatammo at a distance of 800m and a normal tank has to be happy if he can deal damage to another tank at a distance of 300m!

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    5. @Stefan_der_1
      there is a moment when players opinion should be regarded as fail trolling or a mumbling of an insane mind.

      If you you are really afraid of SPG as a real threat in TD mode on himmel in random battle then I don't think you should play WoT, you simply can't play.

      I have an idea - lets make a map with tunnels where arty cant shoot at all!

      Delete
  36. "Recently we have been doing mixed maps that can be approx equally suitable for all classes."

    And this is best option. Himmelsdorf (also Port to some extent) are terrible for many tanks. I mean not only SPG's but also lightly armored tanks and TD's whose main advantages are camo or hull down and which need to stay undetected to be safe.

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  37. Why not introduce a new option to tick on randoms? It would be go like this: "No arties". Case closed. Why is it mandatroy to play among them at all...? Everyone would be happy. 5-5 on tier X battles is still a bit too high i think...

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    Replies
    1. If one type of vehicle can be opted out, all should. So 'No lights', 'no mediums', 'no heavies', 'no TDs' and 'no arties' that the player can select in any combination.

      Delete
    2. exactly what i proposed, but the answer from overlord was "why not adding no hievys for the med players". That's something logical but:

      Artys are just op against anything, the only recurrent complaint is about arty. why not giving a try on test server with the option "no arty" ? and analyse the data ? if 75% of players use this option i think devs must consider it.


      Temujingamer

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  38. We've been playing in a platoon of 3 yesterday. It took over a minute for the matchmaker to find a game in various combinations (e.g. 2 Hellcats + Cromwell; 3 ST-I; Churchill 7 + KV-2 + KV-1S; etc.).

    I've noticed that during these waits the queues only grew longer and longer. Sometimes there were 600+ T5 vehicles waiting - enough to create 20 battles with only T5! Is it possible that the MM only collects players for one game, without checking for possible games of other tiers in parallel?

    At the start of the battles, up to 5 players took quite some time (2+ minutes) to start playing (driving, moving their gun, etc.). I guess they went AFK because of the long wait.

    I think that this is a very big issue that should be looked into ASAP.

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  39. The problem with arty is that counter anything:

    Mediums are one shot, sometime two, by top tier arty.
    Hievys are two, triple shot by the same arty
    TDs, the same.

    lights ? no jokes, if they are not vaporised by a T9/10 tanks before detecting anything they are lucky.

    The problem is: Meds counter vert well TD because they can flank so quick, but are countered by hievys and ARTY.

    TDs counter Hievys but are countered by Meds AND ARTY.

    Lights counter, nothing, they try to spot, got killed. Sometimes they are killed by arti with T92/GWtype E splash of death.


    So if i'm not wrong (12K games during the beta, 6K games now the game is live) Arty is just the easiest way to frag, to earn credits, to counter any tanks (except in urban maps) and to kill without risking any type of counter attack.

    I have a friend, his father (it's not a joke) has parkinson on his right hand, the only thing he can ply on wot is...... Arty, and he is one of the best arti player i know. He levelel the french, german, russian AND us arti with ease.


    So i understand you don't want to remove an entire tank type, or create 20 minutes waiting queue for arty players (i got 2 myself, and i have to admit it's boring as hell to play, compared to TDs,meds or heavys). But You (Overlord) play the same game as us, you have to admit there is something completly wrong with arty. the higher tier you play, the worst it is when there is more than one or two arty.


    Temujingamer.

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    Replies
    1. you have 2 arties you say? Obviously you dont play them too much.

      Arty as a counter for meds and scouts? Yeah right.
      Playing as a scout is simply difficult and risky and sometimes you fail badly even if you are great scout, but truth is most players have no idea how to scout. If they had, the influence of scouts on the match result would be much bigger.

      Arty may be a counter for badly played meds and scouts.
      Most frustrating for arty players is the fact that they depend on their team so much, too often being destroyed in a first 2 minutes of the battle or having no target to hit while their team is slowly vaporised by opponents.

      Arty brings extra level of thinking into the game to everyone and that's why it is hated so much. Because WoT stops being hack 'n slash and starts being a tactical game when you add arty.


      And for all those suggesting that arty is a reason why EU server camps:
      Games when arties get worst results are games with fast push on all flanks. Gamwes when arties get best results are games with a lot of camping.

      If you see arty and you camp, you are doing exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.

      Delete
    2. Arty should prevent static playing but sadly it just isn't working that way.
      Yesterday, i was in the urban part of the map, with extremely good anticipation and focus ive managed to kill E75 and IS7 in my T9 vehicle. I was convinced Ive won us a battle. Ive started pushing since i had 1600HP and... bam. T92 killed me with one shot. Pulled out 12 dings together with such effort against enemy heavies just to be 1 shoted after moving out of safe zone.

      Arty in WOT= Bad implementation of a good idea.

      Delete
  40. Dear Overlord,

    setting the arty cap at 5 is a joke! This is absolutely a halfhearted, if not no solution at all. I enjoyed playing arty very much, but the thing is, that it´s not bearable anymore. This applies especially for the t8 arties.
    Playing in a team with 4 other arties is a pain in the arse. Both sides fall into heavy camping and if there is a target, it goes boom in a second.^^

    Therefore u should consider setting the hardcap for arty at 3 at most. Because this is an amount of arty the players driving tank and arty can endure, anymore and it will just harm the gameplay. But i also understand the difficulty with the impact on the queue-times of arty players. Then again i think, that exactly this is the factor which will regulate the number of arty players, because most of us won´t wait several minutes for just one game.

    Additionally u should consider increasing the cost of repair + ammo for arty, drastically. This should resolve the problem entirely.

    Greetz Seri


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  41. Dear Overlord,

    since the problem looks like coming from the small amount of tanks Tier VIII artilleries can fight, would you consider the option to extend their matchmaking to tier VIII "regular" tanks as it was before the 7.5 patch? This, combined with a good arty rebalance (like the one coming with version 8.3) and the cap already in place, should improve the matchmaker capabilities to get faster matches for everyone, while keeping the game sort of balanced.

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  42. Dear Overlord
    Hard-cap to 3 Arty is the only solution - and please return Arty to normal parameters
    No Arty is Overpowered compared to new Meds or Heavys
    For Example a T-92 has a reload more then 60 sec - then additional Aiming 7 to 10 sec. If at this moment the target is not visible and gunner has to re-aim additional aiming time applies. So sometimes it takes 1,5 Minutes to shut the first shell - with a chance to reduce 1100 hp to a IS8, one shut to Bat25 or reduce 200hp to a T95. Within 90 Seconds playtime a tier 10 med (reload sometime <5 sec) has damage enemy's by > 3000 hp
    What is better for own team ?
    To have 5 nerved Artie's with bad performance (high risk of friendly fire) or to have 3 Artie's with standard performance (accurate gun - low risk of friendly fire) ? btw. i have no problem to wait up to 2 minutes fpr a battle if the hard-cap is set to 3 Artie's each side. And I'm sure the numbers of Artie player will reduce automatically - because not everyone accept this additional time of waiting

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  43. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  44. This solution offered is not a good solution, players know that 3 being hardcap is the way to go. Gue times for players is not an issue. Besides the game is no longer a fun with T7 and T8 arty I went ahead and sold mine theres no need of it. Beside its been years that players have been asking for this and yet nothing has been done. No need to have them in the garage anymore.It frustrates me and alot of players that you're not listening to us with the continue refusal of what we see would make the game better. Time and time again players have asked for the 3 hard cap 5 is not the preferred way to go.

    ReplyDelete