Murazor’s wishlist: Change of Shell characteristics & smoothbore guns

[hall0 1,095]

Ok another Thread about possible Changes. Murazor is talking about his wishlist in shell type characteristics but the real kicker for me is the announcement of smoothbore guns.

Quote

1. What I constantly wish for – changes in shell mechanics and their differentiation. No hardcore changes, just increasing their amount and changing their algorithms. I wrote about it once already – shells which you can only buy for real money are a shitty idea in gameplay terms (P2W), economy and historically accuracy. Allowing to buy prem ammo for silver was a good decision by the devs, but they forgot to make necessary changes.

Currently, they’re distorting the game balance because of their unhistorical characteristics. Implementing differences between full-caliber AP shells (blunt nose, pointy nose, tapered), differentiating sub-caliber ammo (APCR vs APDS), lowering alpha damage for sub-caliber premium shells and modifying their ballistics (according to ‘Armor and Gunnery’ the dispersion difference between full-caliber and sub-caliber shells was visible, the latter losing). Their alpha damage also should be lower as full-caliber shells tended to do more damage in general (according to W.G. Grigorian). Hollow charges should instead have a greater chance to set a vehicle on fire because of the characteristics of the molten copper jet.

Let’s take the M4A3 (76) as an example. Aside of smoke shells, it had four types of ammo – standard APCBC, solid shot, HE and APCR. You chose a set of your own shells to cater to your playstyle – APCBC because of the historical 5 inch penetration will cause greater damage than a higher penetrating, heavier solid shot, because it will lack a powerful shockwave and fragmentation. A sub-caliber round will be useful only on short distance because of low accuracy and a great penetration loss over distance. In the case of the M103 the AP shell with the same pen should have a greater alpha than a HEAT round. This will enrich the gameplay and balance the ‘SerB Premium’ ammo.

One more example – the T-34. You can mount a plethora of guns on it, according to historical data, and balance with the current logic. But you could give the F-34 an alpha of around 150-160 because of the powerful shell and with this make it different from the long-barreled 76.2 and the ZiS-4. Slava Makarov already talked about it and I’m waiting.

2. A tech tree not only for guns but also for ammo types (if there’s a need for it) as a soft of last ditch effort. For example the T-54 and the D-10T2S gun in the place of the now-reduntant D-54TS. Instead give the ability to unlock the BP-412D ammo – a 100mm APHE round from the year 1953 with 225mm pen on 100m.

3. Some vehicles like the Panther, Jagdpanzer IV, M46 with the M47 turret lack ammo. According to drawings and taking all sort of data into account, the Panther should have about 160mm effective UFP armor, but it has 145mm. This would positively influence the role of armor in the game and stop the armor value inflation on some tanks.

4. Introducing a not a few vehicles but a whole premium vehicle tree at once.

5. Introducing smoothbore cannons with new ammo – APFSDS. Two vehicles need to be mentioned here – T95 Medium and T-62. This would enrich the gameplay thanks to new mechanics and new vehicles, and would help segregate soviet top tier meds a bit.

6. When introducing new graphics, all the moving parts on tanks should be animated.

7. Diferentiate an ammo rack fire from an ammo rack explosion. Why do tanks have wet ammo racks? This would help the tanks which have something like this installed. A trip to the garage from an ammo explosion is one things, but putting out an ammo rack fire should be a thing.

8. Add sounds to ammo choice

9. Tanks with limited MM should have less MM weight so they land in top tiers more often, which would be better than manipulating the penetration values of the KV-5 or IS-6.

This are some interesting changes, like less dmg for APCR rounds, something the community wants for a long time now. But it seems WG also plays with the idea to dump their old "no smoothbores in this game" ² policy. This would also make sense since WG is trying to make Obj 140, T-62a etc a bit different. With the introduction of smoothbore guns the T-62a could lose its "a" and could get his historical armament. A different gun would set the tanks a bit more apart. 

 

² wasn't there a mini smoothbore in chinese tanktree long time ago? 

 

https://thearmoredpatrol.com/2017/07/24/wot-murazors-wishlist/#more-52901

ruski VK page https://vk.com/murazortv?w=wall-39215368_812978

[MagicalFlyingFox 1,022]

Does this mean they will actually balance the game properly? 

Those ideas make sense, what that fuck is going on?
I mean, sure, we've been talking about it for over 3 years now, but they're actually considering it? 

I hope this turns out well. I really do. 

[Unavailebow 107]

Reseaching Shells on the techtree ?

Deja vu~

 

I like these ideas, but one thing certainly get into my head is how are they going to make these knowledge delivered to the mass shitters that holds up the pyramid base? How should a normal 15-year old handle ballistic behaviours of APDS, APCBC, APFSDS, and if you bother... HEAT-FS was a thing in the 60s

[Jaegaer 180]

Well. Preaching to the choir.

The problem with WG is not that they have no clue about what to do, the problem is that they don't do it.

Time and again Storm talked about things that needed a change, like Crew Skills or prem ammo. Did something happen? No. Instead we can rarely flip tanks on their heads and tier VIII is now officially the idiot tier.

In the mean time WG conceived and abandoned more things than they actually put into the game.

[8_Hussars 348]

#REMOVE_MURAZOR_FROM_THE_GAME

[Ezz 1,770]

A lot of flowery description wrapped around some basic ideas. 1, sure. 2, why? 3, does that read odd to anyone else? 4, wtf? 5 enrich gameplay, how? 6, 7, 8, like wow man... 9, or just balance the game.

None appear to fix the scourge of broken tanks. Hot air at best.

[hazzgar 730]

Too many ammo types and WG will screw it up for sure.

[General_6 9]

Good gameplay should be about tradeoffs for optimization. Right now the only tradeoff other than more credits is the lower normalization on APCR. I think a little more simplified version of above will work...too may shells and it becomes confusing for the masses. For instance with the M1A1 76MM having a solid shell with higher pen and lower damage and a APCR with worse dispersion and low pen at distance makes decisions tougher. For long reload time tanks this would be pretty tough as having the wrong shell in could be much more problematic than today.

Still a good idea, but as others have mentioned, potential execution issues for WG. (EG: what ever happened to Six Sense being a base skill?

[Archaic_One 1,853]

The whole 'lowering the alpha for sub-caliber ammo' argument is utter bullshit anyway to appease the folks that decry 'goldspam'.  Guess what, a 90mm tungsten-carbide projectile moving at 1400 m/s is not going to do less damage than a 105mm mild steel projectile moving at 900 m/s.

Its just more added complication to a game that already works pretty well.  It does nothing to fix the BS no-weak-spot-heavy-tank-in-a-corridor BS that is actually the problem.  Its just another medium tank nerf in disguise.

You want to nerf goldspam? Limit the existing premium ammo to 10-20% of a load out.  Problem solved.  

Fix the damn maps Murazor, and quit pushing out a new Chrysler GF ever other week.

[hazzgar 730]

16 minutes ago, General_6 said:

Good gameplay should be about tradeoffs for optimization. Right now the only tradeoff other than more credits is the lower normalization on APCR. I think a little more simplified version of above will work...too may shells and it becomes confusing for the masses. For instance with the M1A1 76MM having a solid shell with higher pen and lower damage and a APCR with worse dispersion and low pen at distance makes decisions tougher. For long reload time tanks this would be pretty tough as having the wrong shell in could be much more problematic than today.

Still a good idea, but as others have mentioned, potential execution issues for WG. (EG: what ever happened to Six Sense being a base skill?

Too many shell types and it would be an indirect nerf to long reload tanks

[MacusFlash 2,270]

11 minutes ago, Archaic_One said:

You want to nerf goldspam? Limit the existing premium ammo to 10-20% of a load out.  Problem solved.

20% version.

IS-7 - 6 APCR

Maus - 13 APCR

stronk balance

[hall0 1,095]

16 minutes ago, Archaic_One said:

The whole 'lowering the alpha for sub-caliber ammo' argument is utter bullshit anyway to appease the folks that decry 'goldspam'.  Guess what, a 90mm tungsten-carbide projectile moving at 1400 m/s is not going to do less damage than a 105mm mild steel projectile moving at 900 m/s.

 

The thing is. This mild stell projectiles in WW2 had to a big extent explosive fillers. And therefore it is more like one or more hand grenades explode inside the tank. Not particular a good day if you are inside this tank. This highspeed tungsten shell has nothing but tungsten. It does have some fragmentation inside the tank, yes, but the dealt dmg is not to compare to the explosive filler. With the tungsten core you have to hit vital spots to knock out a tank. While with normal AP shells it is enough to penetrate the tank. The explosive filler will do the rest. And the tungsten shells have a much higher chance to overpen the target. A mechanic WoT hasn't even in. 

So it is not as "bullshit" as you may think. 

[leggasiini 1,567]

10 minutes ago, MacusFlash said:

20% version.

IS-7 - 6 APCR

Maus - 13 APCR

stronk balance

TOG could carry almost 30 APCR shells  

Gold limit is not a solution, really. Keep the gold the way it is and its still broken mechanic, just limited to use but still broken for certain amount of time.

And it doesnt matter that much, if multiple people spams gold at something that has armor, there is still enough gold ammo flying around so it feels exactly the same as if people didnt have limits.

Remove the gold ammo concept and nerf damage on majority of them. Just rebalance ammo types accordingly. Ofc this requires lots of changes to (super) heavies, and maps, but I think it could be done.

Penetration is balance paremeter anyways. Some HEAT shells have like what...more than 100 less pen than IRL? Honestly im not against smoothbore guns as long as they are balanced properly. Just give T62A 115mm smoothbore, rename it to T62, give it high penetration (+20-30mm higher than average medium pen) but as tradeoff give it notably shittier DPM than for example Object 140. 

Also guys, while he is balance head it doesnt automatically mean these changed comes to the game. Other devs may disagree with him and so on

[Tupinambis 173]

57 minutes ago, Archaic_One said:

The whole 'lowering the alpha for sub-caliber ammo' argument is utter bullshit anyway to appease the folks that decry 'goldspam'.  Guess what, a 90mm tungsten-carbide projectile moving at 1400 m/s is not going to do less damage than a 105mm mild steel projectile moving at 900 m/s.

Its just more added complication to a game that already works pretty well.  It does nothing to fix the BS no-weak-spot-heavy-tank-in-a-corridor BS that is actually the problem.  Its just another medium tank nerf in disguise.

You want to nerf goldspam? Limit the existing premium ammo to 10-20% of a load out.  Problem solved.  

Fix the damn maps Murazor, and quit pushing out a new Chrysler GF ever other week.

Yeah it actually will do less damage. The amount of spalling behind a tank's armor is largely determined by the weight and diameter of the projectile that passed through the armor. Bigger shell = more metal shards spraying around everywhere in the crew compartment.

 

The no-weak-spot-heavy-tank-in-a-corridor BS meta that we have right now is the RESULT of retarded gold ammo balance. If ammo types were actually balanced the game would never have gotten to this point.

[Archaic_One 1,853]

I think you guys are kind of missing the point of what I said anyway.  Regardless of the notion of a big slow projectile doing more damage then a small fast projectile (which none of you can substantiate fwiw.  Those of you in the US go to the shooting range and look at the damage difference of small high velocity rounds vs slow heavy rounds fired into the material of your choice).  In the world of 'real tanks' any penetrating shot was generally a KO anyway, the notion of HP is simply a gaming contrivance that we all accept.

I'll stand by my original point that this is essentially just another medium nerf and solves none of the actual problems with the game.  Murazor and Co have shown a consistent desire to steer the game towards a heavy tank brawling utopia where giant armored dinosaurs slug it out in cramped alleys while helpless unarmored rodents (aka everything not a heavy tank) scurry around gathering crumbs.  Blaming the woes of the game on premium ammo is just pubby rhetoric.  

 

[HS5 139]

1 hour ago, Tupinambis said:

The no-weak-spot-heavy-tank-in-a-corridor BS meta that we have right now is the RESULT of retarded gold ammo balance. If ammo types were actually balanced the game would never have gotten to this point.

I think this is pretty correct idea. Heavy tanks on open maps would not be useless if there would be no premium rounds that can pen them most of the time even frontally, so there would be no need to create corridors and limit firing ranges. On open maps with no super high pen rounds (and arty...) there would be role for each class. Light tanks could actually scout, TD's shoot from back, heavies do heavy tank things. I don't know, sounds pretty good to me. Combine this with slightly bigger maps so mobility would have bigger role to not make heavies totally OP and it could be pretty nice change in game play. Now for example at T10 pretty much any tank can pen any tank frontally if they know how to push 2. At the moment this is also kind a needed, but only because of map design.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

YOU DONT FUCKING SAY WG!!

people have been saying ``nerf dmg of gold ammo`` for year and YEARS AND YEARS

WG even fucking tested this lasy year in sandbox!!111

Nerf the fucking dmg of APCR and lower the pen of HEAT + undo all armor buffs + some hp buffs / alpha dmg changes (especially for E3 / 183 / Jp-E100) (like sandbox from last year...) and its fine...

its not THAT hard to balance the game (if you really want...)

[Archaic_One 1,853]

Yes, obviously with they way that heavily armored tanks are under-performing right now, this should be a priority. 

[sahtila 95]

Problem is, current WG balancing seem to be around having gold ammo shoot on heavy tanks. Which leads to far too much armor if they are shoot with normal ammo. I hope WG does not thing gold is new standard. Short term financially surely good for them, but peoples are already getting pretty tired of how expensive this game is. Even WOWS from same company is LOT cheaper to play, even with full premium consumable loadouts.

[WhatTheSkara 345]

Copypasta from war thunder.

This game is officially dead.

[Assassin7 4,353]

I find that I disagree with 80% of Murazors ideas or balance decisions. they're all stupid. 

like, all of this shit that hes said here is just too complicated. the game works on the surface because its simple. this is just adding layers and layers of complications and clutter to the game that it doesn't need. and its going to make balancing even more of a nightmare. 

So many changes are stupid and retarded and not what the players want. I mean, look at the damn Batchat nerf for christ sakes. Im yet to meet a single person playing this game that thinks its anything except stupid. 

Stop trying to fix nonexistent issues, and instead fix the real problems. Goldspam is a problem yes. but whatever this is isn't the answer. Give APCR 10% less alpha. make HEAT useless against angles or something. but making the game more complicated and more annoying to play is NOT the answer. 

[Fulcrous 2,073]

or you know... design maps that allow for dynamic gameplay (i.e. promotion of flanking) rather than static corridors that benefit superheavies and as a consequence require you to use the highest pen shell to make any significant advances before teams crumble

[Hally 126]

Isn't corridors the result of arty? Now with arty not being as big a problem.. can't corridors start getting reverted?

[Fulcrous 2,073]

2 minutes ago, Hally said:

Isn't corridors the result of arty? Now with arty not being as big a problem.. can't corridors start getting reverted?

corridors were the result of wg dumbing down the game, which consequently brought rise to consecutive heavy/superheavy buffs.

[karl0ssus1 325]

15 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

The whole 'lowering the alpha for sub-caliber ammo' argument is utter bullshit anyway to appease the folks that decry 'goldspam'.  Guess what, a 90mm tungsten-carbide projectile moving at 1400 m/s is not going to do less damage than a 105mm mild steel projectile moving at 900 m/s.

Depends. Is that a 105mm solid shot, or are we talking APHE? Because while both APDS and APHE may introduce themselves to the inside of a tank in the middle of a cloud of shrapnel, one of them also contains half a kilo of HE and substantially more mass to turn into said shrapnel.

Admittedly thats not much of a comforting thought to a real world crew, theyre pretty much fucked either way, but as you point out, this is an arcade game. The only thing that should matter is balance, and Ive seen no good reason to not consider damage as a balancing factor. 

14 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

Blaming the woes of the game on premium ammo is just pubby rhetoric.  

And ignoring one issue just because others exist is what exactly? There are probably more pressing concerns, yes, but even WG is capable of working on several different things at once...