I’m Anton Pankov.
Today my colleagues and I will tell you about Ranked Battles.
The idea to make Ranked Battles
arose from a very natural need for players to fight each other
without facing opponents that are too strong or too weak.
So, we decided to create competitive content for high tiers.
Ranked Battles mean that players will only be playing on Tier X vehicles.
This is to create a sort of goal
for those who have already researched these vehicles
and want to stand out among other players,
to really show off that they are highly skilled with them.
In terms of gameplay, this is our regular Random battles mode.
We intentionally used it because this is what players like and know.
This is what will be absolutely clear and familiar to everyone.
So as soon as you hit the “Battle!” button,
you immediately know what you need to do.
There are no unpleasant surprises.
This mode was originally made for, let’s say, solo players.
You can’t play in a platoon in Ranked Battles.
We want it to be a mode where your personal skill,
your mastery level,
and your understanding of the vehicle play a defining role.
The higher your rank is, the more difficult
and interesting it will be for you to play.
And what’s most interesting is receiving rewards.
The better your progress is, the more rewards you’ll get.
The rank is an abstraction.
We thought long and hard about what a rank in the Tanks will be.
The basic concept is simple.
A rank is what helps differentiate one player from another.
The ranks are sequential,
so the better a player performs,
the higher the ranks they will get.
We decided that the ranks would look like epaulettes,
and as it is in the military,
the number of stars will be different for the ranks.
So we have one small star, two stars,
three stars, four stars, and one big star like a general’s star.
Whether you gain or lose a rank,
and how successful your performance is in general,
depends not only on you but also on your teammates.
I think this contradicts the very concept of Ranked Battles
and the point is that you come to show everyone you play really well.
Don’t worry we’ve thought about this.
Maybe you join a team where the players aren’t bad,
but you lose due to a lack of teamplay,
no one communicates properly,
or maybe someone picks a vehicle they don’t know that well…
There can be many reasons for a loss,
especially in balanced and intense battles.
So, what’s awesome is, even if you’re on the losing team,
but you perform great, scored frags,
caused a lot of damage,
the top three players by experience earned in the battle
will get a promotion—we call it a chevron—towards the next rank.
By doing so we provide an opportunity for the players
who play really well to move up the ranks regardless of what
team they play on or how unlucky they get.
And those who win, well, they win, good job.
When players get to the next rank, they will receive a reward.
Of course, they will keep this reward
if they lose their rank for whatever reason.
Put simply, this is the leagues.
I mean this is the criterion
for distinguishing players by their skill:
the higher your rank, the higher your skill.
The matchmaker will also be built depending on players’ ranks.
For example,
players with Rank 3 will mainly play against opponents that also have Rank 3;
or sometimes they will have to play against
opponents that have Ranks 4 or 2.
In our case, ranks mean leagues and they aim to give you worthy enemies.
There are ranks that you can lose and ranks that you can’t lose.
Players can’t lose Rank 1 or the last rank, Rank 5.
The other ranks can be easily lost, if players don’t fight efficiently.
After players earn Rank 5,
a new activity becomes available for them—
they will be able to earn ranks for their vehicles,
which are pretty similar to standard ranks.
The difference is that they are not used for matchmaking.
This means that we continue to match the players
taking into account their maximum Rank 5.
However, players receive rewards for reaching a new vehicle rank,
and they continue to earn special points,
which help them get ranked in the leaderboard table.
But only the players who take positions at the top of this table will receive
the most interesting and precious rewards.
Talking about rewards,
besides the standard rewards,
such as experience, credits,
boosters, and intermediate rewards in the form of consumables,
which will be given to players for reaching the next rank,
we prepared some special rewards.
Rewards will be given in crates.
Crates will contain some items from a preliminary specified set of items,
but what exactly will be in a crate— no one knows.
In other words, we have an element of randomness here.
What could it be?
First of all, it could be a new currency, called bonds.
Players will be able to buy
one of two types of new rewards using bonds.
The first type of reward is our new consumables, which are called Directives.
Equipment Directives are used for improving
the equipment that is installed on the player’s vehicle.
For example, a vehicle is equipped with a rammer,
which reduces reload time by 10%.
Directives will allow for an additional 2.5 %
to the percentage provided by the rammer,
which will reduce the reload time by a total of 12.5%.
The second type of reward is Improved equipment,
which differs from the standard equipment with enhanced characteristics.
For example, a rammer usually reduces reload time by 10%.
An improved rammer will allow for 12.5 %.
Using Directives will increase this number to 15 %, which will be awesome.
Improved equipment, purchased with bonds, will be expensive.
Therefore, you’ll have to save your bonds
and then earn some at the end of a season,
or perform effectively,
receive a large number of bonds at the end of a season,
and purchase improved equipment for vehicles.
When playing Ranked Battles, you will of course receive rewards,
but players always want to boast about their progress and achievements.
Especially for this, we introduced the new customization element—Badges.
These are icons that players can put next to their nicknames,
and they will be displayed for everyone in the battle.
They will be displayed in the side bars,
Tab window, and when loading.
Everyone will see your achievements.
The Badges you get will stay on your account and won’t disappear.
So you will always be able to boast about them.
The seasons will be rather short.
There will be stages within seasons,
so that the players who spend a lot of time in the game
don’t have any extra advantage over those that don’t
because they have more time to fight more battles,
score more victories, more defeats, and so on.
The seasons will be rather short and intense,
so that all players have a chance to participate
and earn their particular ranks.
A season, roughly speaking, equals a month.
A stage equals a week.
They may differ slightly, for example,
8 days, but the point is still the same.
Every week we reset the results.
So, if you manage to reach Rank 4,
you will get the reward that corresponds to this rank,
and then everything resets.
You have rank zero again and start climbing back to the top.
This will go on for four weeks.
At the end of the season, we see how many points a player earned.
This sum of points is compared with the sum of points of every player
who played Ranked Battles.
Based on these sums, we create a table.
For example: 10% of the best players,
then the next 15% percent of the players,
and then the next 25% of the players.
So, we get three leagues,
and every league gets their own rewards.
We looked back at our mistakes from the previous competitive modes
and took many of them into account,
be it the Leaderboard, Domination,
or other modes we had in the past.
We came to certain conclusions,
and this new mode and its features
are built on these conclusions and our vision.
We hope you enjoy gaining ranks and earning bonds.