Making Sense of the .8.6 WoT Changes

If you have kept up with any of the leaks or even official info…there are a lot of changes coming for .8.6 and some of the ramifications of them are a little difficult to unwind.  I’m going to see if I can break them down a bit for you.  There are essentially three major changes:  Arty Nerf, Accuracy Buff, Stopgap Camo Revision.   There are also rumors of a major change in the game economy, and a confirmation of the removal of a previously unknown XP penalty to SPG’s and TD’s (in other words, SPG’s and TD’s were gaining experience slower than regular tanks – this is something WG had previously denied but are now confirming….)  Anyway, in order:

 

 

Arty Nerf:

 

Basically, along with the rebalancing and addition of new SPG’s to bring every tier into the normal 2-10 parameter, there will be some nerfing going on.  All SPG’s, across the board, have essentially had their Rate of Fire and Accuracy coefficient nerfed by and average of %40.   In other words, if you were getting 1 shot off every 20 seconds before, now it will take you 28 seconds.  If the accuracy was .5, now it will be .7 and so on.  Please note: this is in general, and the specifics vary from vehicles to vehicle.

And yes, I know what you are thinking.  This makes arty virtually unplayable.  And it would, if not for the XP buff, which is really removing the XP penalty.  SPG’s will now earn 50% more XP per battle.  There are hints that there is still something more to compensate, but mum is the word now.  Early whispers are some kind of accuracy buff for shots within a particular area -  much like zeroing in is done in real life.  No idea if that’s true or not.

 

 

Accuracy Buff:

 

Right now, when you pull the trigger, your shot will be somewhere in that circle, right?   Well it turns out there where within that circle is indeed based on skill, but it follows a standard distribution curve.  But it  turns out, instead of the normal 3-sigma on a typical bell curve, the outside of the circle is a 1.3.

Yeah.  So to help visualize, here is the normal curve:

Basically, anything from 1.3 onward on this table, in the game right now, is the “edge of the cirle.”  Something like 19% of your shots are landing there.  With a fully trained crew.

In the new update, the “edge of the cirle” will be where the 2 is now.  The end result – many more of your shots will land much closer to the center of the circle, and very few (less than 1% if I remember correctly) will land on the edge.   This is a tremendous buff to accuracy.  There are some changes coming to penetration to compensate – basically high end tanks are having their penetration numbers nerfed, and HEAT shells are being reworked to be less powerful and penetrate less.   Some tanks will be receiving an HP buff as well from what I understand.

As I understand it: this change will not apply to arty.  Read on to know why.

 

 

Stopgap Camo Revision

 

Developer Q&A’s have confirmed that the .9.0 patch will bring a complete overhaul of how camoflage works, but for now two rather significant changes are being made.    The first is hard to pinpoint the result of – every tank in the game is having its camo coefficient redone.  There is a hidden fudge factor for how easy it is to hide a vehicle in the game.   In other words, even if you have a full on camo trained crew and a net, its still tough to hide a JagdTiger…its just too darn big.   Likewise, its much easier to hide small tanks like the T71.

That is being combined with a change to how camo nets and the camo skill work.   Basically anything that was multiplied into the equation is now added or subtracted before.   Camo nets used to raise this base value by 25%.  Now they just offer a flat .25 bonus.   The long and short of that is that vehicles that didn’t hide very well got a buff, and vehicles that hid too well get a nerf.   Also the ability to gain a bonus from bushes has been nerfed.

The end result:  engagement ranges should increase across the board by 15-20%.  And there was much rejoicing.  Incidentally, this is one of the reasons for the severity of the arty nerf – its now easier to see and tougher to hide and tanks will be detected earlier.   This would only make arty more powerful, and the hope is that the nerf along with not granting them the changes to accuracy will result in an overall nerf.

Those are the major things, and if you have questions, I’ll try to answer as best I can.    And if you are in the know and I missed something, feel free to correct me.

 

TLD;DR:   Arty will be harder to play, Tanks will be easier to spot and hit.  Skill makes more of an impact.

 

Day Twelve: Whom You Admire

I could make this post twenty pages long.

 

I could rehash the bloggers I’ve already told you are some of my favorites, because generally speaking I like the blog because I like the voice behind it.

 

Then I thought maybe I could tell you about some game designers I like, but its like I would be telling you something new.   You know of my admiration for Peterson and Fantasy Flight Games,  for Luke Crane’s genius, and so on.

 

I thought maybe about going more general, outside the realm of games, after that fun little back and forth about Andrew Jackson.   But then skimming Twitter today, I saw something and realized this would be a good place to shine another little spotlight.   How about a producer/developer?

 

Basically this is what I saw in my feed:

 

 

And that, ladies and gents, is Scott Hartsman in a nutshell.  Several years ago I wrote a post raging about a poorly worded title in a Rift announcement.  Scott, who apparently on top of the zillion other things guys like him have to work on 25 hours a day, was scanning blog feeds.  He tracked down my email, apologized and promised me a spot in Alpha.

 

It would be easy to chalk that up to media wooing – but I’m not the guy who gets invited to behind the scenes jazz and press junkets.  I’m happy with the moderate traffic I get here, but I am not one of the big dogs.   A couple of weeks later, when the Alpha invite hadn’t materialized, I sent an email.  And by golly, and I got another apology, plus he dropped whatever it was he was working on and I had the Alpha launched downloading within five minutes.

 

In other words, he went out of his way to be nice for a fan.  And that tweet above shows its not just me that he goes out of his way for.   He’s honest enough to speak his mind and kind enough to offer whatever help he can.

 

To paraphrase a line from A Knight’s Tale, even if that’s all I knew about him, it would be enough.   But let’s be honest, Rift was and still is one of the best developed and put together MMO’s out there, and its launch was mostly free of the usual hiccups.   So we know he is talented and good at his job too.

 

So, if you want to know who I admire, there ya go.  I admire Scott for his skill, his openness, and his kindness.  Hopefully he can help some of those guys and gals at Trion land on their feet.

Day Eleven: A Day In The Life…

Well the truth is, in my vocation, there is no typical day.  Some days start at 6am at a local hospital and end with me greeting my kids as they get off the bus.  Some days end at 2am after a long heartfelt conversation and don’t resume until 10am or so the following day.   Its a grab bag.

 

Some days are more disgusting than others…

 

Generally though, on the nights I’m online, I start my gaming somewhere between 8pm and 9pm and will play for 2-3 hours.  That doesn’t mean I head to bed then.  I’m a bit of a night owl.   Some of these posts are generated in that after time and set to public later, for example.   Other times I love music and movie trailers.

 

Other times I’m neck deep in a book.   Rarely do I watch TV.  I generally pick one show a year that looks promising.  Its been a couple of years since the show I picked actually a) didn’t get cancelled or b) held my interest more than a few episodes.   I do watch movies, but I’m not nearly up to date on that.  For example, of all the new Marvel/Avengers movies, I’ve only seen Iron Man 1.   And I just watched it last week.

 

Game wise, I tend to take my time unless I’m in a group.  As the usual healer in our little trifecta for group play, I let my brother (usually tanking) set the pace of gameplay and run with the crowd.  In our recent LotRO adventures though, I’m the tank, and I tend to move at a slower pace, stopping to smell roses and harvest resources more than I should.   Fortunately, LotRO’s combat system mostly consists of picking which skill on your hotbar you want to one shot the next mob with, so its not a big deal.

 

Incidentally, this is why I had so much fun and failed so miserably at City of Heroes.   I stopped to help every little old lady on the street and bag every two bit criminal on my way from A to B.

 

But that usually ended poorly for the criminals.

 

I like to end my sessions, if at all possible, in home base.  This was one of the irritations in SWTOR, where it was often so much more convenient to just log out in the wilderness of Hoth somewhere than it was to try to go through six loading screens to get back to my ship or the city capital.

 

This willy-nilly approach to the limited playing time I have has resulted in very few high level characters over the years.   And oddly enough, the lack of other options is what has kept me on pace in World of Tanks.  That along with the ease of jumping in and out.

 

That ease is something few MMO’s outside of Rift has ever given me, which is one of the reasons I am personally glad for the F2P transition.  I loved all the little daily quests and seasonal festivals, all right there in the capital.  Being able to pop in one night and do a few of those at my own pace is something I am looking forward to.

 

The return of Ellul the Cleric

 

By the same token, this is the same reason my STO character is not only max level, but has maxed out nearly all the secondary assignments (I’m almost done with Engineering, after which only Science, Trade, and Recruitment will remain – and two of those are over halfway done).  In some ways, I’ve wondered over the years if I’m more in love with the idea of an MMO than the actual MMO’s themselves.  But it may just be that there are so many games I enjoy, getting to play more than one a night or week is a high priority itch for me to scratch.  Easy-in-easy-out games help with that.

 

But in any case, this means I’m pretty sure HEX will be right up my alley as well.  Being able to log on, play a battle, and have spent an hour a) having fun and b) accomplishing some definite progression is my holy grail of game fun.

HEX Reward Tier Value Breakdown [Updated]

With some stretch goals unlocked, I’ve updated the value chart for the breakdown:

 

 

As you can see, the Captain tier now gives you the best bang for your buck, with the unlocking of the +5 booster bonus.   However, you may want to bump to Knight – the value is the same, so you are not losing anything by putting down an extra $15, but you are gaining one heck of a booster bump to your rares by getting one of the Primal Packs (all 15 cards are Rare or Legendary – think of Legendary as super Rares).  In other words, coughing up 30% more will net you 66% more rares.

 

Currently the Champion tier continues to lag behind in the value department.  I wish that it inclued the Spectral Lotus Garden perk to make it more worthwhile.   And ode to the original Black Lotus in Magic: The Gathering, it is indeed an interesting card, and getting a new one every day just means that the value of the King tier will grow and eventually catch and surpass the other tiers.  It would have made more sense to include it for Champions, given the enormous weight (and price breakpoint) of the King tier.

 

Anyway.

 

All that talk about the Champ being undervalued changes if the game hits the dreaded, subscription-enabling 540k reward tier.   And every indication is that it will reach that point – the Kicktraq statistics indicate this thing has a lot of steam left in it, with the day 8 backer and dollar numbers not looking any significantly different than those on day 1.

 

So if that tier is hit, as you can see from red underline I added above, the Champion tier suddenly finds itself evening out.  This is because of the inclusion of the 3 months of subscription, which should net you (depending on the start date of the sub, but most likely) 13 booster backs.   Of course, these packs are not worth as much as buying a pack singly, but the end result is a nice even spread of value.  Basically, the more money you put in, the better your value at every succeeding tier.

 

At that point, the only real value breakdown “loser” is the Knight level – but since that’s the first shot you get at a guaranteed Primal Pack, I’m not sure its really all that much of a loser!

 

Of course, when they reveal the next set of stretch goals, some of this could change.  I’ll keep an eye on it going forward.

 

I’m still pissed about the subs and the lack of given equipment for the tiers….

HEX takes another step backwards…

Are you ready for it?  Here’s the stretch goal “reward” for 540k:

 

 

Yea Crypto, I’m sure that’s the reward all your potential audience of Free to Play fans were looking for.   /facepalm

HEX Stretch Goals Made Me Spend…

Less money.

 

Seriously.

 

I wanted Knight tier, at $65.   You get this:

 

 

Mostly, because I really like the Dwarven Merc, and I really like the Scourge Knight.   I had sent an email last week to the  team, asking if the cards came with their respective equipment.  Well, in a very unhelpful email, I was told that the tiers said when we did or didn’t get the equipment to go with the card.  They don’t.   So, as best I could puzzle out:

 

1) Since equipment only affects one card (well up to the four copies of that card in your deck, to be precise),

 

2) And the PvE cards in the Kickstarter are exclusive to the Kickstarter,

 

3) Therefore, we would be getting the PvE cards equipment.

 

But with the release of the stretch goals today, I found out I was wrong:

 

 

Want the gear from the $65 tier?  Tough monkeys.  If you want it, you are welcome to it, so long as you double your pledge.

 

No thanks.

 

Instead, my planned pledge has just decreased, from $65, to $35.   Why?   The $35 Warrior tier now gets an additional card, the Spectral Assassin, and his equipment.   That scratches the itch pretty good for me.

 

Its weird, I always thought the purpose of stretch goals was  to reward the players, encourage them to spend a little bit more money with “add on” rewards, and find a use for some of that extra money coming in.   This is the first time I’ve seen a Kickstarter effectively say, “eh, we’re fine.  If you want to double your pledge we’ll throw you a bone, otherwise, no thanks.”

 

Se la vi I suppose.  Sorry about that Crypto.   Guess I’ll put that extra $30 elsewhere.

 

PS:  I’m also beginning to worry about Crypto’s trustworthiness.  We were told earlier in the comments thread that there was indeed crafting as a part of the game.   Now we are told that one of the stretch goals (at $440k, some distance away still) will be to “add Crafting.”    Um…what?  Does the left hand know not what the right is doing?  Or have we been promising things we can’t deliver all along?

KV-5 Is Back…AGAIN

Do you believe in life after love?

 

No…wait.  Do you believe in second chances?  Ones that will make you sing like Cher even though you have a voice like Kermit the Frog?

 

World of Tanks rolled out some Gift Packages for this Military Parade weekend, with its 5x’s and half-off just about everything.  But they also added a fair number of Gift Shop packages of tier 8′s combined with garage slots for cash direct, rather than gold.   This is actually great, because then I don’t feel like I have to fork over another $50 for the decent cash-for-gold conversion rate.

 

And that’s a pretty good price for a tier 8 premium, particularly since it includes the garage slot as well.  Needless to say, I’m not passing on this beast again.   Looks like between this and all the Kickstarters, I might as well just throw in the towel on saving money this month.  Oi.

 

Anyway, great deals, great tanks.  I hope nobody tells them that the real military parades are actually still a couple of weekends away…