Recently the third Developer Stream took place on the Armored Warfare Twitch channel. It focused on Update 0.14 and its recording can be viewed here.
During the stream, the developers answered a number of player questions. Here's what awaits Armored Warfare in the future!
- In Update 0.14, the focus was on Tank Destroyer changes, Update 0.15 will bring changes to Light Tanks
- The MBT class will follow the Light Tank overhaul, but not all changes will be as extensive as those of the Tank Destroyer class
- When selecting the right gun depression for a Tank Destroyer class vehicle, the developers always attempt to keep within realistic ranges, but sometimes the depression is not historically accurate for gameplay reasons
- M1134 guided missiles fly faster than other missiles in the game, the downside of which is that they are harder to control
- The developers are discussing adding higher ammunition capacity to the M1134
- The reason behind the MBT armor adjustments in Update 0.14 was to make the frontal MBT weak points more consistent (earlier, the likelihood of damaging them was–due to their shape–very low even when specifically targeting them). MBTs can now be damaged from the front, which is intentional. The results of these changes are being carefully monitored
- A hotfix update is coming very soon and will remove the incorrect weak spots of some MBTs, which make them too easily penetrable from the front and sides
- The developers are looking into MBT hull traverse rates, which are currently too high in some cases, making it impossible to flank the said MBTs. Reverse speeds will also be reviewed for the same reason
- The developers are also looking into general high-tier balance where the MBT class vehicle power increases between the tiers are a bit too high. There will be another set of rebalances addressing the issue in the future
- Player-made content (such as decals or camouflage) might be considered for implementation later on (for example as part of a contest), but, given the amount of resources required to make such content game-suitable, it is not planned for the immediate future
- The developers are still working on the Insane mode. The biggest challenge is balancing the difficulty level for multiple vehicle setups, avoiding situations where the battle is relatively easy for one setup but impossibly hard for another
- Camouflage nets are still planned but they will not come in the very near future as the developers want to make sure that all vehicles have access to them and not just some
- The idea behind AI vehicles using HE shells is to help them damage players even when they do not know how to aim at weak spots. The developers are currently working on improving the AI, so that in the future AI vehicles will be able to target the weak points and use AP rounds more effectively
- The developers will definitely replace the current skill-influenced matchmaker (SIMM) model. They have acknowledged the issue with the current implementation and will be moving away from that. They still want to avoid scenarios where teams are completely stacked against each other due to luck of the draw, but they do have a couple of different approaches that they feel are a lot softer. These approaches will break up the high skill balance of a team, but they will not sort out the win rates for both teams to average out against each other. They do not want high-skill players being singled out and we don't want to continue matching players based on their overall win rates even if they are using a vehicle they are less skilled with. Instead, more vehicle-specific ratings are being looked at
- The developers have a lot of ideas about what visual customizations could be added in the future, but it is too early to disclose any details yet
- A number of high-tier Tank Destroyers are planned (including Tier 9)
- More T-series tank variants will be introduced, some might be implemented as reward tanks for various events, others as regular vehicles
- One of the stopgap measures to solve the AI SPG situation in PvE is to remove the SPG AI vehicles from the smallest maps where the shell travel time is very low due to the proximity of the SPGs to the front-line, making evading their fire considerably more difficult. The developers will also have a look at the larger maps, for example by giving players earlier warning from AI SPG fire or by slowing down the AI SPG shells. Additionally, in the future when there are two or more AI SPG vehicles on the field, they will not target the same player
- One of the things the developers would like to implement are ATGM launchers that do not use launcher tubes (for example the SS-11 on the AMX-13 chassis), but the technology to implement this feature has to be developed first
- The developers are working on a hybrid PvP/PvE mode. The details about it will be unveiled when it nears its release
- Unguided missile launchers, such as the M270, are not completely ruled out but there are no firm plans to introduce them either
- The developers are looking into making guided missiles more diversified, one example is the faster M1134 missiles. It's possible that in the future players will be able to choose between several ATGMs on one vehicle: some slower but more responsive, some faster
- When it comes to credit income over time, both PvE and PvP modes are currently competitive and are not that far off from each other. The overall goal is to make PvE Hard mode credit income close to what players can earn in PvP mode and the developers are constantly monitoring the situation
That's it for today. See you on the battlefield!
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