Hi everyone!
I'm Mikhail;
I'm a Game Designer for the World of Tanks project.
Today, we’re going to tell you about the new features for artillery
that you’ll see on the Sandbox test server.
I guess it’s no secret
that players often have problems
with the artillery class vehicles in our game.
Because they can arouse a lot of negative feelings.
Actually, artillery has always been
the most controversial vehicle class.
From the very beginning,
since artillery was introduced to the game,
it acquired both avid fans and avid haters.
With the current settings,
when artillery inflicts high damage per shot on a single target,
it ruins the battle for the player being shot.
There are a lot of reasons for it,
but, anyways, it’s high time to change this situation.
We put a lot of thought into solving this problem.
So we suggested an idea to replace some of the damage
caused by artillery with something different,
something that would help your team,
but at the same time wouldn’t arouse
so many negative feelings in the player
damaged by artillery and leave a chance for them to continue the battle.
A stun mechanic was selected for this purpose.
To describe it briefly, we can say
that this mechanic is limited to a fairly significant
degradation of characteristics in a vehicle
affected by an artillery shell.
In this Sandbox version, we plan to work on this situation.
We will experiment to make the artillery
able to both fulfill its game function
(which is to provide support to teammates,
not let opponent vehicles take advantageous positions
and hold them throughout the battle,
and pursue large groups of vehicles)
and act as a kind of battle bandmaster.
Shell penetration has been changed.
Now, there will be almost no armor penetrations
with full damage inflicted,
because the damage is greatly reduced.
The value of damage inflicted by a standard shell was also changed.
This was done to avoid situations
where a Tier X vehicle is destroyed
after a thin part of its armor is fully penetrated,
so the extent of damage was practically halved for all artillery.
We aim to avoid such casual stray insta-frags.
What’s more, our plan isn’t just to take away
some of the damage from artillery
and provide it with a stunning option instead.
It’s no longer advantageous for an artillery player to hunt for one vehicle,
there's no sense in chasing a single target,
even if it’s unarmored,
but it does make sense to pursue large groups of vehicles.
It has vast splash damage, it has this stunning effect.
Due to this, it is advisable
for artillery to properly select a position
and fire at groups of opponents.
Now, they should cooperate with allies within the team
to influence the outcome of battle,
because while playing solo,
they won't be able to hunt down rating-chasers
or influence the course of battle.
Now they need allies to fire at the targets they’ve stunned.
Of course, we understand
that artillery inflicting less damage
should get compensation in some aspect.
You will earn both experience
and credits for damage caused to enemy vehicles you stunned.
Consequently, if you actually manage to stun an enemy vehicle
in the right place at the right time,
and your allies inflict damage to it afterwards,
you will get a pretty decent profit from it.
The duration of the stun effect
caused by artillery highly depends on the percentage of damage
inflicted by a shell.
Naturally, vehicles with better armor
will get significantly less damage from high-explosive shells,
and vehicles with thinner armor
will suffer more damage
and be stunned for a longer time.
If an enemy vehicle is hit by a shell,
enters its attack range, or receives splash damage,
the following goes into action:
the vehicle is guaranteed to be stunned for 30% of the stun duration;
and the other 70% depends on the damage
inflicted by the shell to this vehicle.
The higher the damage, the longer the stun time..
Artillery won't have armor-piercing shells anymore.
It will only have standard and Premium HE shells.
This is to avoid random AP shell penetrations
that can destroy an enemy vehicle with one shot,
it also means all the damage is high-explosive and causes the stun effect.
There are several ways for players to avoid the negative effects of stunning.
If you are a heavily armored vehicle
that has nothing to lose and you aren’t too concerned
about your maneuverability, you can mount a Spall Liner.
It’s good for absorbing high-explosive damage,
which has been lessened
and, consequently, the Spall Liner has become more effective.
Besides this, it reduces the duration of the stun effect
through reducing damage.
Also, players can use First Aid Kits for healing.
First Aid Kits are now reusable.
First Aid Kits and Repair Kits have a cooldown time now,
you'll be able to use them several times per battle.
In addition to that, the usual First Aid Kit
that healed crew members can now undo the effects of stunning.
During the first iteration of Sandbox testing,
the interface was in a pretty raw state.
Firstly, we had little time for its development.
Secondly, we didn't have a full understanding of where to go.
We are really grateful to the players
who tested the first Sandbox version.
They told us what they would like to see,
what information they lacked.
They even gave us some advice
on how to implement their requests.
As a result, we launched the second iteration of Sandbox
with significant interface improvements.
We added an option for artillery
to indicate the area on the map
at which it is aiming or is going to fire.
This way, artillery will be able to inform allies
that it is going to aim at this specific position
and monitor it, and may need help in spotting enemy vehicles there;
or it can warn teammates that it is going to fire at that area
and, perhaps, they shouldn’t approach opponents so closely
to avoid being stunned by their ally.
Who stunned whom and for how long is shown,
to make it clear to allies if they should attack or not after they reload.
For artillery players, damage
caused to vehicles while they are stunned is displayed separately.
We couldn’t ignore Battle Assistant,
a popular modification for changing the sight type in the game.
Based on this modification,
we implemented our own targeting version (trajectory sight),
and we’ll demonstrate its first version on the test server.
The aim of our innovations is to reduce
the toxicity of artillery as a class in our game.
For those who play with artillery,
we'd like to remove situations when they miss
with an armor-piercing shell and a Premium shell
or just a shell that is pretty expensive is simply wasted.
And we'd also like to change the situation for vehicles
that are commonly hit by artillery
and sent to the Garage
without a chance to participate in the battle.
Simply…
I mean there was nothing wrong with their actions.
They just had bad luck:
they were aimed at by artillery.
We want to get away from that.
We want to turn a poor damage dealer
into a good support vehicle.
There probably wasn’t a vehicle in the game
that could help teammates so efficiently before.
With a single shot, the advance of five vehicles can be stopped.
Yes, perhaps, it isn’t about inflicting damage,
it only causes temporary degradation of their characteristics,
but it creates an opportunity for teammates to attack.
We want to believe that battles will become more dynamic.
With actions being better thought through
and involving more teamwork,
with cooperation between the team and SPG players.
We look forward to seeing you on the Sandbox test server.
In its second iteration,
you will have a chance to try all the features we’ve mentioned today.
You can play with artillery and against it.
Experience what it’s like to stun opponents
and be stunned by them.
Broadly speaking, you'll have a chance to try new gameplay,
and your feedback about it is very important to us.
You can help us make the gameplay more interesting
and the game—even better.