Our next set of answers from the development team is in - learn about the development of the game in this round of questions and answers!
Question: Any plans to improve older PvE missions?
Answer: Yes. We will for example be revamping several older missions such as Snakebite and Harbinger to cover more area.
Question: Do you plan to introduce the World War map for Battalions?
Answer: We recently released information on our new Lords of War PvP mode, which will provide a competitive platform for organized Battalion PvP content as a form of PvP “endgame”. You can read more about the new mode in the official LoW developer diary. We do have plans for a future World Map style Battalion competition as well.
Question: Could you share any progress on PvE Insane?
Answer: At this moment this difficulty is on hold pending the introduction of other more involved PvE related gameplay elements. We do want to provide hardcore PvE players a greater PvE challenge, but the way in which PvE difficulty is increased by PvE Extreme on the Public Test Server is ultimately not the direction we want to take to make the mode more challenging.
Question: Are there any plans for environmental objects causing damage to player vehicles?
Answer: Not at the moment. We do feel that having environmental objects damage player vehicles (such as a bridge falling on top of players) would lead to a frustrating gameplay experience. We’d prefer damage to come directly from player vs. player actions. That being said, we are currently testing some off-map call-ins for a new gameplay mode currently in development.
Question: Why can’t we have all the maps in daily rotations at once?
Answer: We are looking into expanding the daily rotation pools to encompass more maps.
Question: Would Obsidian consider building an open world PvP /PvE game mode?
Answer: While that idea sounds very appealing, it would be an extremely resource- and time-intensive undertaking without the surefire promise that it would actually work out. We are currently focusing on improving the basic game modes and introducing new competitive ones.
Question: Are you planning to introduce automated vehicle stats retrieval so that the garage vehicle stats don’t have to be entered manually?
Answer: Yes, this is something we are looking into.
Question: Can we expect any sorts of engineering/support vehicles in the future?
Answer: It's something that we have always wanted to find a place for but as of yet haven't found a good way to integrate these vehicles into the game. The issue is that engineering/support vehicles would generally have no armaments, making them unable to defend themselves from any other vehicles which means they would be missing out on all of the mechanics surrounding dealing damage/defeating enemy vehicles. Bridge layers are especially challenging since not only can they not attack, they also just do one thing then need to sit there. Our feeling is that while this might be occasionally interesting, it wouldn't be something that would hold up as entertaining for very long. We've considered other ways of introducing these vehicles, such as having them be something that is only used for a limited duration in a match but that the player would still have their primary 'non-support' vehicle to fall back to after performing 'support' duty for a limited time. As of right now, however, integrating engineering/support vehicles is not a priority. If the opportunity comes along where they might be more engaging in future modes then we can revisit their development at that time.
Question: Is the lack of a 140mm+ gun a problem for Tier 10 candidates?
Answer: Not at all – we can make advanced 120mm guns competitive at that tier as well. While 140mm+ guns do have the advantage of dealing more damage per shot, they also have worse accuracy and longer reload times. As we continue to flesh out the T10 lineup, we will include vehicles with smaller cannon calibers which have better accuracy and RoF stats, making them better choices for those looking for more consistency.
Question: Will we see in the future an option to mount the Obj.195's turret when equipping 152mm on the T-14 Armata?
Answer: An entire alternative turret for the Armata is currently not planned.
Question: Any chance of the T-15 Armata getting the 57mm cannon?
Answer: The 57mm variant is currently not in our plans either, but it is possible it will eventually appear in the future.
Question: Will the Warrior ever get its ATGM launcher?
Answer: We are planning to rebalance the Warrior. The version we built is the 30mm variant of the Warrior which did not mount an ATGM launcher according to what we have been able to determine. We are continuing to evaluate adding an ATGM launcher as one of the options.
Question: When will we see ATGM launchers being able to be elevated or lowered? What about ATGM reloading animations?
Answer: It is something we are looking into for the future. We will be fixing the ATGM launchers that should be capable of elevation and depression soon. Reloading animations will be some ways off, but we do have designs for adding secondary animations to more vehicles (ATGM launcher deployment, shell ejection, etc.).
Question: Are you planning any PvE map optimizations to reduce the framerate drops?
Answer: Yes, it’s something we are actively working on. Update 0.16 is bringing a number of map improvements which reduce frame “hitching” for many users and we plan to have more in the patches following.
Question: What do you think about "bank" feature, where you could borrow credits from a friend?
Answer: That is not something we would like to introduce. Such a system would bring few advantages but many downsides known from other open market MMOs, such as begging, trading credits for real money, etc.
Question: Does the engine support the ability to choose between a manually loaded and autoloaded configuration?
Answer: The problem in this case is not the loading mechanism itself but the fact that the vehicle without an automatic loading mechanism needs a loader – an extra crewmember. Variable crewmember counts are not something we are currently looking into.
Question: Is skill-influenced matchmaking coming back?
Answer: There are currently no plans to bring SIMM back to the normal PvP queue.
Question: Are there any plans beyond the Leopard 2 vehicles to overhaul MBT armor and introduce “logical” weakspots? What about other vehicle balancing?
Answer: Yes, we are currently actively working on a major balance overhaul which will include revisions to MBT armor. Update 0.16 is mostly about correcting some of the core game issues; while subsequent updates will bring more of the core changes planned. While we work on refining these changes, we will keep the community informed and involved in the rebalance efforts.
Question: Will the mechanics for driving a wheeled vehicle be improved?
Answer: Yes, we are looking to improving overall wheeled vehicle handling in an upcoming update.
Question: Will you introduce additional prerequisites to high-tier vehicles to ensure their users know what they are doing?
Answer: There are no such immediate plans. We are evaluating the prerequisite system overall to see how it can be better utilized, however.
Question: Do the developers plan to share more detailed information about game mechanics in the future?
Answer: Yes. Once complicated mechanisms such as crews or camouflage are finalized, we will disclose more about their inner workings.
Question: What random distribution is used to implement shell deviation RNG?
Answer: AW uses a three-sigma distribution method with some slight deviations.
That's it for today, stay tuned for the next part!
