echo9835

I think Wargaming has a hat full of asset cards. they pull out a nation card, turret card, gun card, hull card and so on until they make a new tank. Move the slider bars around until the stats seem "reasonable", call the tank "dynamic", make something up about its history, and throw the thing onto supertest as a marketing device.

I don't know, this checks all the new premium tank boxes.
Over tuned statistics Frustrating to play Toxic to fight Gimmick Vastly more effective premium rounds All we need now is Wargaming to call the gameplay "Dynamic" or say it has "Dynamics" and throw it in a 90 dollar marathon bundle.

People play WoT because they hate themselves. Grinding is the most effective form of self harm.

Marketing team must be asleep. They didn't call it "dynamic"

I think Wargaming has a hat full of asset cards. they pull out a nation card, turret card, gun card, hull card and so on until they make a new tank. Move the slider bars around until the stats seem "reasonable", call the tank "dynamic", make something up about its history, and throw the thing onto supertest as a marketing device.

say it has excellent dynamics too.

1900 dollars to min/max a single crew that can play in up to 3 tanks. What a deal. I could build a gaming PC and buy a years worth of games off that budget. Or pay multiple months rent. or buy food for 6 months. 🤣 

Not even free to play. I'm a paying player (probably bought 20t8 prems, constant prem account) but I dont spend gold on every crew retraining. If this goes through expect me to be gone

We are cursed to get this shitty crew 2.0.
It is the same shit like last time, but with some minor improvements here and there. Sure it is better than last time. But even after you add parfume to a pile of shit, it still stays a pile of shit. 
Bonus level after max level are still there. With less bonuses but still with bonuses. But WG sells it, like they have fixed the issue. All they have done is lower the bad impact this extra bonuses will have. And if you can still level them up by using free XP they have created a nice way of pay to win. Convert your XP to free XP with gold. Profit. They should have stayed with the crewbooks. This way anyone could level it without spending real money. 
Instructor system still in place. Bonuses aren't random any more. But still there. This system alone makes it confusing. Do I need now all my CW tanks with certain instructors to remain competitive? 
New max level. 80 instead of 75. And you will get your old skills transfered to the new system. You can have the same crew as you do have now. What they did not mention are the ultimate skills. They are still there. And who cares about your old skills when you are pretty much forced to get your ultimate unlocked. 
Crew retraining without gold is still horrible. You can still lose hundreds of thousand XP. With all the crew books and stuff, people seem to forget how huge this loss of crew XP can be. Unlike now where you can grind your 90% crew back to 100 within an hour you will lose weeks of grinding. This alone should enrage every free to play player there is.

does this mean they're gonna put it in? Fuck sakes.

Since there are so many other useful commander skills, I’ll put it on tanks which have a spare commander skill available beyond 6th/camo/repair/recon/BiA/FF/SA. So… like 1 or 2 so far. 

I will have you know I put Low Noise Exaust on my maus. It is way better than a camo net.

I will have you know I put Low Noise Exaust on my maus. It is way better than a camo net.

I will have you know I put Low Noise Exaust on my maus. It is way better than a camo net.

I will have you know I put Low Noise Exaust on my maus. It is way better than a camo net.

Ok now my 2 cents. All this changes have the potential to ruin the balance of the games even more. 

The idea to have several equipment and amo setups is something I like. Amo setups are probably just here to safe some credits from time to time if you are toptier. Other than that I don´t see any benefits or game breaking things. 
Equipment on the other hand can be a double edged sword. CCs always seem to bring up the scout unbalance when one side on Poko has a Shitcore fully equipt for spotting and the other side does not have such luxury. But what is the difference to now? Bushwanker Scouts like Shitcore and Even90 are already equipt for spotting. Not much will change on this maps. The enemy scout which has a dmg build focus could at least try to counter this in the future. 
With this feature you can specialize your tanks for public like you do for clanwars. Good players will exploid the system even more. Bots will keep running the Maus with camo net. 
Second category slot is nice as it could reduce the impact bond equipment has. In particular with the coming bond turbo and hardening. Especially the bond turbo has the potential to change competitive gameplay. All timings are gone when you can boost heaviums to medium levels. 
But we adapted to equipment 2.0 so I am certain we can adapt to this as well. 
Dual Modifications. Another Creditsink. At least this thing has pros and cons. But who needs this? It adds an shitty feature and even more complexity. 
But now to the worst thing of all. This shitty Rank system with buffs for every level and it hides all the other changes behind a XP wall. This is Crew 2.0 level of bullshit. 
When you have not much XP you can´t use all the advantages the other changes give you. This will create so much balance problems. 
Now you are screwed if your Toptier is stock and the enemy is not. This Rank system can screw you even more now. Your tank is stock? Well have fun with the OP premium with every future unlocked, we have put as your counterpart in the enemy team. Hope you will like this gaming experience. 
Grinding tanks will feel even more shittier. Not only you are stock you even lack gameplay features now.
WTF is WG even thinking? 

Maybe add this loadout systems. Maybe even this stupid dual modifications. But hell no. Don´t hide it behind this XP wall. 
And for fuck sake don´t add vehicle buffs this retarded ranked system gives you. 

Is it just me, or is this just kind of par for the course for WG at this point?
You start out with a good idea: Multiple equipment/consumable loadouts that can be swapped between at the start of a battle. This is honestly an amazing idea, and as said earlier will really help light tanks, which kind of need it.
But then WG adds some not so good ideas: Stat changes to all tanks in the game that can and will be min-maxed to death by players who understand them, and will widen the gap between good and bad/new players.
And then, just for good measure, they throw in a massive grind that can be skipped with free xp (Oh, and did you all see that new package in the Premium shop with gold + credits?).
I think I detect a pattern here.

Hello!
As has probably been requested about a billion times in the past, the forum is finally getting a dark theme! You can select it by scrolling to the very bottom of the page, clicking on "Theme" and selecting DarkLabs.
I'm considering this a very beta version of the skin, and there might be several things that will require tweaks along the way. Let me know if you find something off and I'll get it fixed ASAP.
Cheers!
Never

So far I have been pushed out in front of enemy fire and witnessed 7 artillery suicides. I am on game #4. The Russians are a friendly people.

So far I have been pushed out in front of enemy fire and witnessed 7 artillery suicides. I am on game #4. The Russians are a friendly people.

They're going to uncheck a few boxes and move some slider bars then pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

This is their plan. 
Mark my words. This is how I predict what´s going to happen.
1. They will fix at least two of the five mentioned Main Discussion Topics. 
My guess: 0-Skill XP and Randomnes of the instructior skills.
2. 75 Skillpoints and Ultimateskills will stay.
But lvl 75 will be much easier to reach. 

3. Presitgebonus will stay but will be capped after two levels or so. After those you will get different bonuses like less repair cost, more crew xp. 
4. Instructior bonuses will be nerfed. 
5. Everything will be much cheaper.

 

I should think that 1.0 maps, armour inflation, pen inflation, reward tanks, and the ubiquitous use of gold (HE for some tanks) would be slightly higher on WG's list of things to fix than.......crews having the same skills.
Also, a lot of it isn't just poor execution in the sense of WG being (as it usually is) incompetent, some of the stuff, like 750 gold for retraining, RNG instructors and the post-75 grind are specifically designed the way they are to get players to spend real money on the game.

Yep, this hands down looks like the worst change to the game in years. As others have pointed out, it is bad on so many levels it is simply not funny. Yes, there will be some iterations, but again, WG recently has a habit of forcing stuff through despite negative feedback. Probably nothing short of a full-scale RU server revolt will stop it at this point in time.
So many bad decisions. They cannot possibly think that the majority of players have 5+ skill crews, it is so painfully obvious that the majority of players will have 3-4 skill crews, simply because going beyond that has massive diminishing returns and is basically unnecessary when playing randoms. The bonus to the additional grind levels beyond level 75 are simply too big, and will only exacerbate the current issue of veteran players dominating new players because the veteran players will start substantially closer to to those additional levels than newer players - plus they then get to use that dominating crew in 3 vehicles, instead of just 1! RNG on the 'instructors' (which was already a dumb idea to deal with the special crew members - they have been a successful mechanic in the game, why now remove those fancy voice-actor lines and special portraits from he crews entirely?)
The zero-skill and bonus BIA commanders getting nerfed is potentially the one area I can see them changing because of the paid aspect of many of these crews.
There are some aspects of what they are trying to do here that has merit, such as starting new players on better ground, and there are aspects of the WoWS model that I think could work okay in WoT, but as usual, the transition ideas here are just absolute trash.

I did a summary of the changes (I'm lazy so the formatting is fucked). But really, it doesn't take a professor of anatomy to tell you that the changes are ass. Here's why:
 
1. Crews lose skills
Your old crews that had 3-4 skills will only have ~40ish skill points in the new system, which will lose you - 2-3 skills/perks in practice
3-4 skills were basically enough for anything that wasn't a highly specialised LT build,
but now, you have to grind much, much more to get those crews to perform at the level they perform now, i.e. >75 points in the new system which is the equivalent of what is now a 5 skill (non-0th skill) crew.
for a more detailed take, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/lqriw0/this_average_crew_loses_24_skills_when_converted/
2. Crews do not combine
If you were in the habit of grinding several crews to 3-4 skills instead of having 1-2 crews which you maxed out (which most people will be), you're shafted because crews do not combine and you're stuck with multiple (un-competitive) crews
this is unfair to the players because under the old system, there was very little incentive to go past the 3rd or 4th skills, whereas now you're massively penalised for it with no recompense whatsoever
if you think this is just sandbox and they might change it later, community contributors have said on the forums that they do not plan on introducing merging crews as a feature.
3. 0th skill crews have exactly 0 worth
If your crews are Christmas crews/0th skill BIA crews, the extra skill you have will not be counted in the new system - you lose 2-3 skills from that alone - not counting the fact you effectively lose 2-3 skills anyway for what are currently 3-4 skill crews
this massively shafts people who bought/ground out 0th skill crews with zero compensation
4. RNG-gated instructors
Speaking of 0th skill crews, special 0th skill crews will now become 'instructors' which give small bonuses to specific perks. you have a choice between 3 perks of one category for each instructor - and which 3 you get to choose from is pure RNG - no rerolls.
this locks bonuses behind a pay to progress, RNG-based mechanic where previously you just had to grind crews to progress.
which makes the game even more unfair as between the players that pay up and players that don't (or can't).
5. Massive endgame grind for even more inequality
They nerfed the commander bonus and introduced a new 'expertise' grind where for each level of progression you grind past the 75th point, you get a 'small' bonus to your vehicle handling. vehicle handling is the same thing as what BIA does now, and the maximum ('small') bonus you can get from expertise is 20%........on top of the 5% you already get from the renamed BIA and all the other bonuses you have through skills/equipment.
Previously, crews, once you were past 100% and had BIA, no matter how much you played with them, no matter where you got them, no matter how many crew books you bought and fed to them, were capped at the same level of performance - you won't get a faster reload, you won't get less aimtime.
For the mechanics of these changes, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/lqlt46/crew_20_sandbox_general_feedback/goi4lif?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Now as for their effects....
The new system introduces an all new grind that gives you the equivalent of stacking an extra ~ 2.5 more bond vents on your tank
this not only adds a new grind, but increases the already gaping inequality between players
a new player with a fresh crew will lack the renamed BIA, he might lack equipment, he is likely not to be be running food, he certainly won't have the expertise bonus on his tank - and he will be facing veterans with crews that perform 40-50 percent better than what he has.
*this hypothetical player would have to grind the equivalent of 7 skills in the current system just to catch up.
the only bandage on this fresh bullet wound is the free sixth sense - which players in the current system could have got pretty easily by crew books in the first place - and which could be added without all this hullabaloo with the new system.
CW Implications:
some of the perks would be very strong in a competitive setting, which I admit isn't a bad thing necessarily.
for a decently competitive clan, crew 2.0 would mean basically mandating people to have the equivalent of 6-7 skill crews in order to perform on a 'level' playing field
and that's not counting stacking with bond/bounty equipment and access to reward tanks
There are also side issues with tanks with large crews seemingly being shortchanged but that's minor compared to the iceberg that we're headed towards.
Don't look a gold sink in the mouth!
one of the touted features of Crew 2.0 is that you can train 1 crew for up to 3 tanks, only that..
u/Kuratovsky has kindly pointed out to me that in Crew 2.0, training your crew for the 2nd and 3rd tanks, just like retraining crews under the current system, will result in a penalty.
unlike in the current system, the retraining penalty for the 2nd and 3rd tanks is 10% of the crew's total experience.
if your crew has, say, 13 million exp (~6 skill crew), you will lose 1.3 million crew exp from the F2P option - and this directly eats into your crew skills/expertise bonuses
currently, the penalty for retraining a crew to another tank is 10% of the major qualification, i.e. 10% of 100k exp. this does not affect the crew skills/perks.
if you want to avoid bleeding XP, the solution is simple: 750 gold, 750 gold for every tank other than the first tank, and for every new tank that you switch in.
the effect is that what appears to be one of the most F2P friendly features of Crew 2.0 is simultaneously the least F2P friendly part of the changes. this is because people who don't have gold will be forced to lose 10% of their total crew XP every time they retrain a crew to a different tank.
Concluding thoughts
For those of you who say that there's nothing to worry about and WG will surely revise the sandbox changes and make them good, I present to you the examples of:
what happened to WOWS (https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldOfWarships/comments/k44sbi/flamu_dissects_the_upcoming_commander_skill/)
what happened to Console(https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/l12hd1/world_of_tanks_console_ruined_with_1_update_dont/gjx40yr/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
and what is happening with the HE changes despite the population being generally ambivalent towards them (http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/765180-sandbox-test-he-shells%E2%80%94feedback-and-reaction/)
For those of you who still remember, Rubicon failed in 2015 because the playerbase was not okay with cosmetics having an effect on gameplay. That they made heard. These changes with Crew 2.0 are of a much greater magnitude, are much less accessible, and in their current guise, it is safe to say that they will impact the game much more negatively.
The multitudinous changes to the system and the overhauls to the interface only serve to hide the fact that your crews will be worse, that as players we will suffer, that we will have to pay more, grind more, to get less in return.
There is no reason that the playerbase should allow these changes to happen.