Developer Digest - Pt.9

Welcome to the ninth issue of the Developer Digest series - find out more about the development of the game straight from the developers themselves, this time with answers from the Fireside Chat!

Richard Taylor, Armored Warfare lead developer, answered a number of community questions during the recent Fireside Chat event.

• The developers are looking into some of the secondary weapons on vehicles to make them usable, after which airborne AI opponents (helicopters) might be introduced eventually (but not soon)
• It has not yet been decided how and when the Centauro 155 will return, it could be as a Tank Destroyer or as an artillery vehicle
• There are no current plans to introduce Tiers 11 and 12
• The Lords of War feature has been delayed somewhat as more tests need to be run, but it should be coming in the near future
• There will be some general mobility changes as part of a large vehicle rebalance, but this will not appear in Update 0.17
• MBT hull traverse and gun handling is likely to be slightly reduced in the future. Current MBT gun handling is in some cases too high due to buff stacking, which will be addressed
• Armor model will be significantly changed. MBTs will retain their survivability, but lose some of their imperviousness as the high-tier armor is currently more or less binary (it can either be penetrated by anything due to weakspots or it is invulnerable)
• Regarding high Tier balance, the power creep from Tier to Tier is higher than the developers want, the power differences in tiers will be somewhat reduced (survivability, damage etc.), both armor and mobility will be significantly overhauled, ATGM viability will be improved. Generally speaking, high-tier gameplay is the main motivation behind these changes
• Off-road mobility for all vehicles will be adjusted as well. The developers are switching to a realistic movement model based on real life statistics, acceleration curves, hull traverse etc. – under this new model, Light Tanks will keep a lot of their current off-road mobility and will be able to get around the map a lot faster than other classes
• The T-80 will receive a reactive armor kit along with its complete overhaul (new T-80 model)
• The T-64A will come as well, but not as a regular vehicle. More details will be shared in the future
• The developers will take a look at the VFM5 Light Tank, but there's no rush to change this vehicle
• One of the game elements to be overhauled are the autocannons, their damage per minute and their role on the battlefield
• Despite their class, the Terminators are not recon vehicles and the developers intend for them to play the role of front-line damage dealers. They will see some changes in order for them to perform better in that task
• There's a good chance the Black Eagle MBT will appear in Armored Warfare
• The Base is a feature that is not currently fulfilling its intended role, but at the same time it is quite expensive to develop. The developers haven't been able to improve it further due to other high priority tasks. There are ideas for improvement, but it would take a lot of time and resources to implement. One option is to invest those resources into it, another is to rework it from the ground up or even pull it out completely and compensate players who have spent their time on it, but there is no definitive answer at the moment
• Custom battalion logos are not scheduled for the near future
• There are no plans to introduce WW2 vehicles to Armored Warfare right now
• Update 0.17 will introduce mass-openings for Loot crates
• One way to improve PvP waiting times from Obsidian is the abovementioned reduction of power gaps between tiers, allowing lower tiers to have a chance in fights against higher tier vehicles, which in turn will allow the matchmaker to put interesting setups together while giving the bottom tier vehicles a genuine chance to affect match outcome. The developers are not happy with the current position of bottom tier tanks and will improve their situation one way or another
• At the same time, the developers are exploring different options for smaller teams (for those night-time hours with low online numbers) such as making such teams smaller and putting them on special, size-limited versions of existing maps, but such considerations are still at the pre-prototype stage
• When it comes to maps, the developers are currently focusing on updating the existing maps rather than pushing new maps out at all costs
• The big problem of city maps is the performance, as such maps are very object-intensive and are problematic to run on lower end PCs. More optimization needs to be implemented before the introduction of a fully urban map
• The developers are considering overhauling reward mechanics, something that's linked to upcoming modes for which the current mechanics are not very suitable
• Loot crate contents are determined at the point of its opening
• The Active Protection System mechanism will be overhauled to make it less of a "magic shield" and more akin to its real life counterparts. The missiles might get through with reduced penetration, there might be an APS failure chance or the APS might not activate at a certain minimum range. Additionally, it's possible that the APS system operational angles (areas in which they activate) will be accurately modeled (currently they are active for a 360 degree radius, which is not how they operate in real life)
• Electronic countermeasures and electronic warfare mechanics in general have been discussed a lot internally, but they are not planned for the near future. There are, however, some ideas on how to implement them
• Command vehicles were also discussed, they are cool but not planned for the near future
• Dynamic platoons are planned for implementation
• Support of player Camouflage customization is not currently being developed
• The Commander and Crew system overhaul were delayed due to other priority tasks
• There are no plans to make exclusive commanders (Anthony Diaz, Maximilian Koenig) available again
• Players who purchased the Founder's Pack vehicles (Expeditionary Light Tank and Terminator) will receive a special skin for them before these vehicles are sold again after their one year exclusivity expires
• The developers are planning to introduce Tier 9 and Tier 10 Chinese MBTs for 2016, as well as two more progression lines for the third dealer Zhang Feng
• The times for which the vehicles immobilized by destroying their tracks will definitely be increased

That's it for today. See you in the next issue!