Author: Andrew Rowe, Lead Systems Designer
Hey all,
In the previous Developer Diary, we have explained the changes to the PvE Reward system in Armored Warfare. Today we will have a look at how the system changed based on player feedback!
Current Insurance Costs (which, based on player feedback, are being renamed to Logistics Costs) for the Medium Difficulty are as follows:
- Tier 1: n/a
- Tier 2: n/a
- Tier 3: 4000
- Tier 4: 6000
- Tier 5: 9000
- Tier 6: 12000
- Tier 7: 15000
- Tier 8: 18000
- Tier 9: 20000
Current Logistics Costs for Hard Difficulty are as follows:
- Tier 1: n/a
- Tier 2: n/a
- Tier 3: n/a
- Tier 4: n/a
- Tier 5: 12000
- Tier 6: 21000
- Tier 7: 28000
- Tier 8: 36000
- Tier 9: 42000
Note that these are lower than the costs that are currently on the Russian Public Test servers, as we're continuing to tune the system. These numbers also might not be final - they're just what we're testing with internally. Also, as an important note that may not have gotten around, we've also decreased the cost of the PvE Resupply Consumables.
Regarding the class-specific concerns, some AFVs have an earnings disadvantage in PvE, but it's not by a huge margin. Here's an idea of average net revenue without premium pre-patch on PvE Hard at Tier 9:
- Challenger 2: 37382
- T-90MS: 36977
- M1A2: 31367
- CRAB: 28583
- BMPT-72: 34455
- Draco: 34550
- Leopard 2A6: 31669
- M8: 30631
Note that these are base values without any premium modifiers (e.g. accounts, boosts, etc.) and taken from a specific telemetry snapshot; they don't represent all data across all time. In this example, the average net at Tier 9 is ~33k. The CRAB is the lowest (at 5k below average), and the BMPT-72 and Draco are just slightly above average. Two of the MBTs are at the top of the list, but the Abrams and Leopard actually are actually below the tier average.
You'll note that these net revenue numbers are a little lower than the previous data published. That's because this is from more recent telemetry data than the previous posts. Consequently, that's also what helped me be able to make the adjustments to insurance costs without making PvE overwhelm PvP profits. I've been watching the data and tuning accordingly. Average damage per match doesn't actually vary that much by class, either.
- Challenger 2: 11897
- T-90MS: 12826
- M1A2: 13840
- CRAB: 11723
- BMPT-72: 10907
- Draco: 13991
- Leopard 2A6: 12071
- M8: 12345
The Draco actually has the highest average damage per match of any vehicle. The M1A2 is second, in spite of having a relatively low net profit for a MBT - this is largely because the M1A2 has the second highest consumable usage (after the M8). I realize the Draco isn't a good example for average AFV damage, of course - it's a very unusual, hyper specialized vehicle - but even the CRAB is fine on average damage, dealing almost as much as the Challenger 2.
Anyway, if your concern is that some classes are getting hit by this more than others, I don't think that's something that you need to worry about - there are slight class disparities, but they're not huge, nor are they universal. And we can definitely keep tuning the system if we need to. If you feel like there isn't enough of a reward for being the person who goes after secondary objectives specifically, that's a valid concern, and we do have ideas for improving that - but they're part of another stage of iteration further down the line, as part of a bigger potential reward system overhaul.
It's too early to give any details on that, though, since it's still subject to change. We don't want to encourage players to split off from the team and play dangerously, or try to race each other for the secondaries, so we're looking at ways to make secondaries feel better from a team play standpoint. As an aside, I've also bumped up all performance-based PvE income by a small amount, which is not reflected in the 0.13 Preview patch notes yet either since this change is very recent. This will also help ensure income is higher than pre-patch.
One of the most common questions I'm seeing is, "Why are we increasing rewards and adding a new cost at the same time?" There are a few reasons for this.
Net earnings for PvE were already relatively good compared to PvP, but gross earnings were much lower. As a result, pre-patch players with Premium Accounts or vehicles get a lower benefit from Premium on PvE, since Premium is a multiplier to gross rewards. By adding a cost and increasing rewards, we've made both gross and net rewards for PvE Hard comparable to PvP. This also makes it easier to directly compare PvE earnings to PvP earnings, both from a player perspective and a design perspective, if both modes have costs.
Finally, adding the costs and increasing base reward values means there's more variation in mission rewards based on performance. This is something players have been wanting for a long time. If we had just increased the rewards for PvE directly by some amount - say, 50% or something - it would have PvE rewards higher than PvP for non-premium players, but they would have remained lower for premium players. Thus, this approach wouldn't have fixed all of the problems, and it would have introduced a new one.
We also considered just increasing the Premium multipliers for PvE, but this only would have benefited Premium players, and it also would have added a burden of knowledge for players to keep track of different multiplier values for PvE and PvP to figure out what was more efficient. Thus, this solution wasn't ideal, either.
Overall, this solution helps us even out the rewards between PvE and PvP significantly, making an improvement for both Premium and non-Premium players. Hope this helps explain some of what we're doing and we’ll be seeing you on the battlefield!
