Balance 2.0 – High Tier Vehicle Gameplay

Commanders,

We have already unveiled a large portion of the upcoming changes in our Balance 2.0 series and now it is time to take a look at our vision for high Tier gameplay and the vehicle changes that we have in store for Update 0.19.

To introduce more diversity to high Tier gameplay, we have decided to add the Rapid Fire mechanism to several vehicles in Armored Warfare. Vehicles equipped with Rapid Fire will be able to fire several shots in quick succession but then will have to wait for a longer time for the crews to fill the magazine with shells again.

There will be two types of Rapid Fire mechanism:

• Autoloader Magazine
• Ready Rack

Autoloader Magazine is basically just a clip. The vehicle can fire the shells in the clip but then has to wait for them to reload for an extended period of time.

Ready Rack is a bit more complicated. Vehicle equipped with Ready Rack has several shells stored for quick use and can fire them in rapid succession before having to wait for a long for the Ready Rack to load again. Unlike the autoloader magazine, however, the vehicle does not have to wait for the entire Ready Rack to fill and can fire immediately after the next shot is loaded. Only once two shots or more are loaded in the Ready Rack can the vehicle fire in rapid succession again – in other cases the loading time is significantly lower.

Rapid Fire mechanism will initially be introduced to the following vehicles:

• T-14 Armata (Autoloader Magazine, 4 rounds)
• T-90MS (Autoloader Magazine, 4 rounds)
• Merkava IID (Ready Rack, 3 rounds)

In order to introduce more diversity between classes, we have decided to update the Upgraded smoke grenades and smoke discharger mechanisms. All classes will be able to fire a number of smoke grenade rounds or discharger charges in quick succession before having to wait for an extended period of time for them to reload. Additionally, the total amount of smoke grenades or discharges available will be limited for come classes.

• MBT Class – 1 round, 80 seconds reload time, 5 rounds in total
• AFV Class – 2 rounds, 80 seconds reload time after both are spent, 8 rounds in total
• TD Class – 2 rounds, 80 seconds reload time after both are spent, 8 rounds in total
• LT Class – 3 rounds, 60 seconds reload time after all 3 are spent, 9 rounds in total

Based on both the community feedback and our own internal discussions, we have decided to change the way the Commander Cupola weakspot works, especially on high Tiers.

In the future, Commander Cupolas (if present) will only take 10% of damage from armor-piercing rounds and 25% of damage from HEAT and HE rounds. The HEAT damage bonus versus thin armor will, however, remain active.

Exposed gun components on vehicles with externally mounted guns will take the same reduced damage as Commander Cupolas – this applies for example to the BMPT series, the T-15 or the M113 ACAV. It does, however, not apply to unmanned turrets (like the Armata has) or to the armored base of Remote-Controlled Weapons Station.

Another way to introduce more varied gameplay to Armored Warfare is the changes to various APS systems on different tanks.

In Update 0.19, each APS will be fine-tuned individually. For example, the Armata hard-kill APS will have the following properties:

• Cooldown: 30 seconds
• Arc: 180 degrees
• Minimum range: 200 meters
• Magazine: 10 rounds

In Balance 2.0, we changed the way the HE “splash” works. “Splash” is not triggered by ground explosions anymore, it only activates when the shell hits a vehicle. Upon hit, the Splash will “spill” over the vehicle doing damage to the thinnest armor it encounters. Thermobaric guided missiles such as the Russian Ataka-F will use the HESH mechanism rather than HE.

Ammo rack explosions are coming back in Update 0.19. Instead of causing an instant explosion, the affected ammo rack will instead blaze away, doing massive damage per second that can destroy any vehicle if not extinguished quickly. Vehicles with blow-out panels such as the Abrams series will be immune to ammo-racking or will have the damage caused by ammo-racking significantly reduced.

Update 0.19 is introducing a number of spotting mechanism and camouflage changes.

Bushes will no longer lose full camouflage bonus when firing while hidden behind them (they will retain 33% of it). In Update 0.19, firing automatically reduces the camouflage bonus of all bushes within 15 meters to 33%.

Additionally, the bush bonus itself was changed as well – in Update 0.18, the bushes gave 0.2 camouflage rating bonus that could stack with multiple bushes to 0.3. In Update 0.19, the bush bonus is increased from 0.2 to 0.3 and can stack up to 0.6 for multiple bushes covering your vehicle.

Camouflage loss from firing was considerably reduced to 0.2 for Tank Destroyers and ATGM launches and to 0.25 for every other type of weapon and class. The duration of this penalty is also being reduced from up to 75 seconds (depending on circumstances) to 5 seconds flat. Additionally, players will have a roughly 0.25 second delay before the penalty kicks in in order to be able to start moving after firing without getting spotted instantly.

The duration after which your tank will fade from enemy sights if spotting conditions are no longer met is reduced from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.

To offset some of these changes, scout AFVs will receive a 30 meter viewrange bonus when standing still and will only lose 0.05 camouflage rating when moving. Light Tanks do not lose any camouflage rating when moving at all.

For more information about Balance 2.0, please visit our dedicated website page.