Crew 2.0

[Ezz 1,770]

It's small consolation but it should be noted that everyone else who had been happy grinding multiple 3-4 skill crews will be in the same boat wrt competitiveness. The overall drop in effectiveness of crews upon conversion is going to hit everyone.

[simba90 100]

34 minutes ago, Ezz said:

 is going to hit everyone.

Hopefully it hits WG'g in the gonads pocket

[Bobi_Kreeg 379]

6 hours ago, echo9835 said:

So I have a 5 perk, 80ish percent crew in my Charioteer on the live server. They translated into a 63 point commander on the sandbox thanks to the 0 skill BIA from being female crew members. I then dumped 11 training manuals into them. They still are not maxed out. This system is trash, it is designed to punish people with a lot of crews and incentivize them to dump resources and money into a few crews. On top of that many of the new "perks" are really situational and pretty much not worth taking right out of the gate. Considering that every single skill and perk in the game right now is a passive buff to the tank that is always on, I am baffled by all of the situational, gimmicky, and flat out stupid skills in the new system. It really shows that the Wargaming development team doesn't play their own game at all. I am completely convinced now that the current development team at wargaming literally does not understand how the current crew system works and why crew skills are important in the current meta. 

Thats another problem official forum cant understand . What We call "5 skill crew", wargaming calls "4 skills crew". 

In order to convert to lvl 75. You need to have 5 FULL skills and 6th open. That is what we call a 6 skills crew. It's insane. 

On top of that, level 75 is not the end. Additional mastery levels beyond 75 are there and they are OP. 

So you actually need 7 skills on your crews right now to get good conversion results into 2.0.

Even if they improve conversion. To lets say, 4 full skill crews for lvl 75. Thats still too much. I still dont have any of those. 

I have a hundred crews all with only 2 or 3 full skills. 

[Jesse_the_Scout 2,098]

If I understand how WG thinks at this point, they released this with glaring problems knowing it would probably not be well received. So when they "rework" the idea they'll remove the worst parts. To solve the issue of useless 2-3 skill crews, for example, they'll allow you to choose to trade in crews for crew books in some way. Then when they finally cram this new system in every one will be so relieved it's not as apocalyptically bad as the first iteration they won't notice the fact WG just got you to pay 750 gold twice to use your own crew and massively inflated the crew XP grind permanently. It's a basic negotiation tactic, open up with something crazy and then "compromise" it down until the other side accepts.

[Ezz 1,770]

Kinda sad that most of the content people I've watched so far are either completely unaware of the impact of the new xp cost of retraining or are deliberately leaving that out when making their assessment on the new system. I'm beginning to wonder whether wg put out a list of 'don't mention...' topics they'll hope the players won't notice.

[Bobi_Kreeg 379]

Its because they are sitting on millions or hundreds of thousands of gold.

What's 1500 gold per crew to someone who has 500.000 and has nothing to spend it on? 

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

4 hours ago, Bobi_Kreeg said:

Its because they are sitting on millions or hundreds of thousands of gold.

What's 1500 gold per crew to someone who has 500.000 and has nothing to spend it on? 

the retraining thing bothers me the most, i NEVER retrain for gold (u lose 20% of the basic skill, thats what, 20k exp? how terrible)

While when u have a lot of exp, the lose is bigger, i only retrain once, to swap in bia, and dropping from 70% 3e to 65% (or whatever) also doesnt matter much (i dont ever get it to 4e anyway)

But with this new system, its either spend A LOT of gold, or get fucked exp wise....

21 hours ago, Jesse_the_Scout said:

There aren't 75 levels, that's smoke and mirror bullshit. The crew keeps leveling past that, so there's effectively more like 83ish levels. Those last "non-levels" potentially grant +20% to crew skills in total. You get like +4% or something at your first couple of bumps past level 75, which seems suspiciously like the crown jewel they want people to grind furiously for. Maybe they'll change it, because it's pretty asinine.

Ah, then its indeed a true dick move...

[Bobi_Kreeg 379]

Yea. One crew for 3 tanks. -> Is shit wrapped in a gift box.

You have to pay 1500 gold to add 2 other tanks. OR lose millions of exp points on decent crews.

And when moving up a new tech tree, from tier 1 to tier 10, you have to give them 6750 gold or say goodbye to your exp. So it's not even noob friendly.

 

HE 2.0, Crew 2.0, Equipment 2.0. It's all a scam. Their (Wargaming) only motive for doing anything since 2012 is money.

[3MAJ86 126]

35 minutes ago, GehakteMolen said:

the retraining thing bothers me the most, i NEVER retrain for gold (u lose 20% of the basic skill, thats what, 20k exp? how terrible)

While when u have a lot of exp, the lose is bigger, i only retrain once, to swap in bia, and dropping from 70% 3e to 65% (or whatever) also doesnt matter much (i dont ever get it to 4e anyway)

But with this new system, its either spend A LOT of gold, or get fucked exp wise....

Ah, then its indeed a true dick move...

Exactly this is my biggest issue as well. I wrote two huge posts on the official forum only for this part. And in their FAQ, they claimed as "the price in the new system is slightly lower". It is sooooooooooo not true. It is true only for gold conversions and for the big crews of 5 and 6. XP penalty is humongous! And credits penalty is significantly higher (between 40 and 120k in current vs. 500k in the new system). 

[Ezz 1,770]

Iirc the old credit retraining was capped at about 39k xp for 20k credits per crew. Just give us a similar capped option and the retraining and multiple crew should be fine. 750 covers the old 200 gold per crew, so 75k credits would be equivalent.

[Assassin7 4,353]

finally downloaded the sandbox today.

 

Here is a comparison of my STBs crew, which went from 53% on their 6th skill to Level 75 Specialist 5 mastery on the Sandbox. based on the skills I chose (I tried making the skills as identical as possible to my old, Live loadout) - plus four instructors which I had bonus to the VR skill, the base BIA skill, the consumable reload buff skill, and the make you accelerate faster skill. 

 

 

Notable:

• Lost 0.05 seconds of reload speed
• lost 0.02 seconds of aim time
• (possible but hard for me to notice or confirm on 300+ ping sandbox) Lost some bloom reduction on hull and turret traverse
• lost 4.15 traverse speed
• lost 2.76/0.58 stationary camo (sorry bad cropping, its 27.62/5.77)
• lost 2.07/0.43 moving camo (bad cropping, 21.47/4.49)
• Gained 16m VR
• gained 32m Radio range (though that literally doesn't matter)

 

a 16m VR bonus is a decent buff. Id say its worth the tradeoff for the gun handling. Is it worth the tradeoff for the camo and other stuff? I personally am not sure of how big a loss that is, someone with more knowledge on the topic would be better able to comment on that. 

 

Also should note, I picked basically zero of those skills that you need to proc to activate (as in, for X seconds after doing Y, get Z bonus) because I absolutely despise the entire idea of those skills. plus reading them none of them actually seemed to be that especially useful.

 

other note, to get to the 30 points to unlock one of the big talents means you have to put enough points into the tree that talent is locked behind. I was picking skills from all over on my STB crew. I had to stretch to a skill I didn't really want very much just to get to the 30 points to unlock that specific talent. If a talent I wanted for that tank wasn't in a tree that fits the optimal build for the tank, I'm basically permanently gimped by either picking subpar skills to get the talent or forgoing the talent to get the skills I need. 

If WG wanted more variety in skill choices, this was not the way to do it. 

 

 

[Deus__Ex__Machina 989]

@Assassin7 another thing to note is that alot of the skills on sandbox dont proc until ur in battle or meet certain requirements.

unlike the current system that just outright buffs ur tanks overall, the new system sets goals or thresholds to meet in game to gain benefits and buffs from ur skills.  

while at first this seems shit (and it is) the other side of the coin is also problematic, in that many of these situational buffs are huge compared to the current skills and under certain circumstances in battle will basically make ur tank a god. and so it raises the issue of unpredictability when facing people in game. because if player 1 managed to meet requirements A-Z while fighting you his tank will suddenly see a massive jump in performance (even if for a short time) that will give him a huge advantage over you. 

 

[lavawing 498]

1 minute ago, Deus__Ex__Machina said:

@Assassin7 another thing to note is that alot of the skills on sandbox dont proc until ur in battle or meet certain requirements.

unlike the current system that just outright buffs ur tanks overall, the new system sets goals or thresholds to meet in game to gain benefits and buffs from ur skills.  

while at first this seems shit (and it is) the other side of the coin is also problematic, in that many of these situational buffs are huge compared to the current skills and under certain circumstances in battle will basically make ur tank a god. and so it raises the issue of unpredictability when facing people in game. because if player 1 managed to meet requirements A-Z while fighting you his tank will suddenly see a massive jump in performance (even if for a short time) that will give him a huge advantage over you. 

 

*activates both repair kits* 

[Assassin7 4,353]

21 minutes ago, Deus__Ex__Machina said:

@Assassin7 another thing to note is that alot of the skills on sandbox dont proc until ur in battle or meet certain requirements.

unlike the current system that just outright buffs ur tanks overall, the new system sets goals or thresholds to meet in game to gain benefits and buffs from ur skills.  

while at first this seems shit (and it is) the other side of the coin is also problematic, in that many of these situational buffs are huge compared to the current skills and under certain circumstances in battle will basically make ur tank a god. and so it raises the issue of unpredictability when facing people in game. because if player 1 managed to meet requirements A-Z while fighting you his tank will suddenly see a massive jump in performance (even if for a short time) that will give him a huge advantage over you. 

 

on that crew I specifically picked only skills that DONT have that requirement thing because I absolutely hate the idea of it. 

here's the skill loadout I have:

 

edit: lmao I've dumped literally 13m+ XP into this crew and its only at specialist 2 now, I could dump all 1.5m free XP I can get (what they gave me+converted from gold) and it still wont be enough to get to specialist 1. 

okay WG. 

[Ezz 1,770]

It's basically meaningless to even care at this point, but of all the ways they could make the game more gimmicky, did they really have to go with such unrealistic ones?

[Deus__Ex__Machina 989]

21 minutes ago, Assassin7 said:

on that crew I specifically picked only skills that DONT have that requirement thing because I absolutely hate the idea of it. 

here's the skill loadout I have:

the new adrenaline rush for Ex is a pretty big change compared to the one we have in game atm. 7% reload reduction for being 50% HP or below is kinda nuts.

also as Lavawing hinted at, the skill "applied mechanics" skill is pretty OP in the sense that you just get a faster reload on demand for using a repair kit (which can be used at anytime when the skill is trained) but i also discovered that for whatever reason it can be double stacked by running two repair kits and using them both. or even having two just to extend the skills buff. there are other similarly OP proc based skills if you read through them all. 

the new critical dmg skill "vulnerability expert" was also massively buffed for whatever reason, the current version of that skill only gives you 2% bonus crit chance on modules, the new one on SB can give 10% when fully trained and up too 18% when you stack 4 trainers with the bonus for it. in practice this is huge (especially on large caliber guns or fast firing guns/autoloaders) because you get *alot* of fires and ammo racks and even full engine kills 

[lavawing 498]

10 minutes ago, Deus__Ex__Machina said:

the new adrenaline rush for Ex is a pretty big change compared to the one we have in game atm. 7% reload reduction for being 50% HP or below is kinda nuts.

also as Lavawing hinted at, the skill "applied mechanics" skill is pretty OP in the sense that you just get a faster reload on demand for using a repair kit (which can be used at anytime when the skill is trained) but i also discovered that for whatever reason it can be double stacked by running two repair kits and using them both. or even having two just to extend the skills buff. there are other similarly OP proc based skills if you read through them all. 

the new critical dmg skill "vulnerability expert" was also massively buffed for whatever reason, the current version of that skill only gives you 2% bonus crit chance on modules, the new one on SB can give 10% when fully trained and up too 18% when you stack 4 trainers with the bonus for it. in practice this is huge (especially on large caliber guns or fast firing guns/autoloaders) because you get *alot* of fires and ammo racks and even full engine kills 

I'd only add that you can also stack (RNG go brrrrrrt) instructors to get it to something like 80%, making it more or less permanent considering the chip damage that you take from arty

[Assassin7 4,353]

19 minutes ago, lavawing said:

I'd only add that you can also stack (RNG go brrrrrrt) instructors to get it to something like 80%, making it more or less permanent considering the chip damage that you take from arty

just stacked 4 coherence instructors on my STB crew.

my reload is now 5.18 seconds. (5.32 on live)

since I cant get to max crew XP rank, unless there's another way to get a LOT  more crew XP the sub 5 second STB reload dream is not to be

edit: oh I get a whole bunch of XP books just for playing the game. can I play enough battles to get enough XP to do it? probably not

[Jul_Le 23]

2 hours ago, Deus__Ex__Machina said:

the new critical dmg skill "vulnerability expert" was also massively buffed for whatever reason, the current version of that skill only gives you 2% bonus crit chance on modules, the new one on SB can give 10% when fully trained and up too 18% when you stack 4 trainers with the bonus for it. in practice this is huge (especially on large caliber guns or fast firing guns/autoloaders) because you get *alot* of fires and ammo racks and even full engine kills 

How is the 10% calculated though? Normally, there's a 27% chance to damage an ammo rack if you hit it, does +10% mean 37% chance or 27% * 1,1 = 29,7% chance? If it's the latter, it's pretty much the same as the current one on live server. If it's the former, then you could expect an ammo rack kill every game if maxed out.

[hall0 1,095]

Yesterday I had the chance to play on the Supertest.
To make it short, I don´t like it. 

From watching the video already it was cleart to me, that this whole new system is a complicated mess. While the change from the current Skillsystem to this new Skillpointsystem I could at least understand and accept. This system with Ultimateskills, Prestige and Instructiors is giving me goose bumps.
 

As many I think the transition from one system to the other will not grant you with the same power. Let alone this 0-Perk crew tansition bug, I endet with several crews being worse than before. 

But the worst thing about this new system for me is the psychological effect it had on me. An example. Currently you grind a marahton tank and you get it with a 0-perk crew. Adding some crew books and you have a 3 skill crew in an instant. And with this 3 skill crew I feel powerfull. Maybe not the best crew but I have the feeling it is a good and powerfull crew. 
When this crew gets transfered to the new system I end up with 47 Skillpoints (3 complete skills + 50% in the 4th skill).
Let alone if this new skillpoints net me the same power of skills. Now I know there is 75 skillpoints + this prestige system what comes after it. 
So 75 is the new good. Everything below is just meh. 
Therefore I come from a system where I felt powerfull to a new system where I seem to be a looser. I don´t feel as powerfull anymore. 
I have so many crews sitting in the 4th skill rigth now and I think those are good crews. After playing on the testserver and transfering them to the new system they felt like shit. 

[Deus__Ex__Machina 989]

1 hour ago, Jul_Le said:

How is the 10% calculated though? Normally, there's a 27% chance to damage an ammo rack if you hit it, does +10% mean 37% chance or 27% * 1,1 = 29,7% chance? If it's the latter, it's pretty much the same as the current one on live server. If it's the former, then you could expect an ammo rack kill every game if maxed out.

you know just as well as i do those kinds of stats are never disclosed, but id guess its the latter.

i ran it maxed at 18% on several tanks just for the memes, and i was getting a fire almost every other game. and a ammo rack like every 2-3 games when shooting for modules. which far more often that you would ever get on live. tanks i ran were the 5A/VKK/907/Kran.

i highly doubt the skill will remain the same as it seems bugged or unintentional that its doing such consistent module dmg.

39 minutes ago, hall0 said:

I have so many crews sitting in the 4th skill rigth now and I think those are good crews. After playing on the testserver and transfering them to the new system they felt like shit. 

i had this same feeling tbh. you think ur 4-5 skill crews are pretty good on live (and they are tbh) but on SB they are sub par at best.

reason being that in this new system only the XP earned on ur commander is calculated into the new point system, therefore all the XP on ur other crew members is completely wasted. 

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

After reading a bit more it seems to a classic WG case of: Good idea, terrible execution

1. Every tank having more or less same skills is indeed a problem
2. Not beiing able to pick every skill, so you are forced to choose is also a good idea
3. Many tanks are ``too goo``, so its not bad that having a good crew harder is (the gains should be minimal at the end, not maximum like current

So the basic idea is fine, the way they implement this is stupid, stuff like ultimate skills and instructors are all just overly complex, its just what.

Drop all the extra shit, remove all the special bonuses, give 0 skill bia crews more exp, and call it a day,

ps: and ingame special things seem stupid, gimmicks almost never work in wot (or are OP as hell) so its probably pointless to train them, using 2 repair kits and food, means any fire or dead crew is gonna screw you over big time, the good game from more dpm will get compensate by first minute 2 crew dead from arty...

 

[simba90 100]

Has any one mentioned the firefighting directive getting neutered so you have to either train the skill or drop food for an extinguisher?

[lavawing 498]

12 hours ago, GehakteMolen said:

After reading a bit more it seems to a classic WG case of: Good idea, terrible execution

1. Every tank having more or less same skills is indeed a problem
2. Not beiing able to pick every skill, so you are forced to choose is also a good idea
3. Many tanks are ``too goo``, so its not bad that having a good crew harder is (the gains should be minimal at the end, not maximum like current

So the basic idea is fine, the way they implement this is stupid, stuff like ultimate skills and instructors are all just overly complex, its just what.

Drop all the extra shit, remove all the special bonuses, give 0 skill bia crews more exp, and call it a day,

ps: and ingame special things seem stupid, gimmicks almost never work in wot (or are OP as hell) so its probably pointless to train them, using 2 repair kits and food, means any fire or dead crew is gonna screw you over big time, the good game from more dpm will get compensate by first minute 2 crew dead from arty...

 

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.

[Madner Kami 405]

Yup, they are recycling their audience harder than any time before. It's something that was apparent in WoWS for a while now and while WoT always was going hard for that, it will make a step up with this change.