Supertest: Premium Ammo Changes
3 min readOne of the most awaited changes to the game is now entering the Supertest stage: the overall 25–30% drop in damage for special rounds. The objective is to make shell choice more thoughtful in battle and lowering the damage of high penetration shells.
This is the very first testing iteration aimed at general evaluation, for now, it’s merely a rebalance of special shells’ damage, without any adjustments to their cost. The Supertest will be conducted with a limited selection of vehicles to check:
- the viability of the idea and the impact of its implementation on the game;
- the effect of lowering the special shells’ damage has on the total damage dealt;
- the overall combat efficiency of the vehicles involved in testing.
Set in stone or subject to change?
The decision to decrease special rounds’ damage isn’t set in stone as it’s still in development so it may change significantly. After the first testing run, Wargaming will decide what to do next:
- Change the amount of damage slashed off the special rounds and fine-tune the stats of individual vehicles
- Enlarge the pool of tanks in the Supertest to gather even more data.
- Or course we’ll take into consideration your feedback on the changes proposed.
A varied list of very different vehicles was selected for the initial test. For some vehicles having APDSs as their basic rounds, they have been substituted with AP shots of the same speed. Likewise, for the vehicles with AP rounds as their specials, they have been replaced with APDSs.
Wargaming will track the distribution of damage done per shell type, the changes in vehicles’ battle stats with regard to their class and role, and lots of other parameters. These are the questions Wargaming is aiming to get an answer to with the test:
- How much shall the special rounds’ damage, especially against well-armoured targets, drop? This is one of the key areas the players on heavily armoured vehicles asked.
- How shall the damage be re-distributed between the two other shell types? Wargaming aim is to reduce the special rounds damage against well-armoured targets in particular. Thus the overall damage of other shell types could grow; they want to check whether it’s true during the test.
- How shall the share of HE shell damage change? Currently, the total share of HE damage is small and it’s not intended to be changed. Overall, the combined special HE shell damage is mostly dealt by the Type 4 Heavy and the Type 5 Heavy tanks. The special round for the Type 5 Heavy will be substituted with a HESH with an alpha of 750 points and a penetration of 193 mm.
- How shall the rebalance affect the battle performance of individual vehicles? Wargaming knows that currently certain tanks are played with a greater-than-average special to non-special rounds ratio, to increase their efficiency. So we want to assess how these vehicles’ performance changes.
List of Changes
| Vehicle | Old Damage | New Damage |
| IS-3 | 390 | 290 |
| T-44 | 250 | 190 |
| IS-7 | 490 | 360 |
| KV-5 | 300 | 225 |
| KV-2 | 700 | 500 |
| Object 268 | 750 | 530 |
| IS-4 | 440 | 320 |
| T-100LT | 300 | 225 |
| Object 430U | 440 | 320 |
| Tiger II | 320 | 240 |
| Ferdinand | 490 | 360 |
| Maus | 490 | 360 |
| Jagdtiger | 560 | 410 |
| E-100 | 750 | 530 |
| Panther II | 240 | 180 |
| Jagdpanzer E 100 | 1050 | 735 |
| Leopard 1 | 390 | 290 |
| Pershing | 240 | 180 |
| T57 Heavy | 400 | 300 |
| T110E4 | 750 | 530 |
| T110E3 | 750 | 530 |
| T69 | 240 | 180 |
| T49 | 700 | 500 |
| M48A5 Patton | 390 | 290 |
| AMX 13 90 | 240 | 180 |
| Bat.-Chatillon 25 t | 390 | 290 |
| AMX AC mle. 48 | 400 | 300 |
| Tortoise | 400 | 300 |
| Super Conqueror | 400 | 300 |
| FV217 | 480 | 350 |
| TVP T 50/51 | 320 | 240 |
| Progetto M40 mod. 65 | 360 | 270 |
| WZ 111 G-FT | 560 | 410 |
| Type 5 Heavy | 1400 | 770 |
The testing is just starting, and your feedback will help take the correct decisions. Let us know what you think down in the comment section.
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As soon as they realise how much less income they get when players stop buying Premium ammo, they will find some excuse to return it to its current state.
Fantastic, nerf low tiers. Now, if WG do it, when you go combat with you t8 versus t10 you will do less damage but t10 will kick you *** with all DPM.
Gold amno is not a big problem in WoT.
MM is a huge problem
OP premium tanks is a huge problem
Bonus equipment is a big problem
WG solving absurd problems and leaving unresolved the real problems of wot
The basic idea to reduce damage of ‘special ammo’ is good I guess, but I think that at the end of the day the success of this depends on changes made to tanks with overpowered armour, and I bet anything that Wargaming will do what’s necessary, especially with Russian tanks. Will they nerf the 403U’s armour or, even more importantly, the Defender’s? I bet they won’t, which means these already unbalanced vehicles will become even stronger after the ammo nerf.
If wg want to be faire and they will be less interest in the future income of this measure is going to do for them they will make the price for all the shells the same and special ammo will have the less dmg then now…
This is the way people will stop the gold ammo spam. BUT DON,T WORRY WG WANT US TO SHOOT MOORE AND MOORE GOLD AMMO BUT FOR A BIGGER PRICE THAN NOW…YOU,LL GET LESS CREDITS BECAUSE OF LESS DMG AND FOR A PRICE BIGGER THAN NOW…ONLY WG WILL WIN…THIS IS FOR YHEM NOT FOR THE PLAYERS.
Dude, the armor of defender or obj 430 is not a problem. Mouse, Type 4,5 heavy , Obj 257, t95, t110e3 are the problems
Hi, my opinion is that that changes will destroy advances and clan wars specialy on city maps. For example Ruinberg, you don’t have time to kill 15 Type 5’s or Mauses in 10 minutes with full dmg premium ammo?!!
For random battles not important at all.
10% is ok but 30% is too much.
Blanket nerfing everyone’s premium alpha is stupid, in particular because not all premium rounds are made the same. Panther II for example, lives in large part from it’s premium rounds (lol @ getting 100 alpa on an already aneamic 75mm gun with 135 alpha or the questionable value that the 88/L100 brings to the table), so does the T69. Especially the later is bad enough as is and it is beyond redemption without a viable premium round as it can not even fairly fight it’s own tier, because WarGaming keeps forgetting their their bottom-line is completely broken to begin with and while 3-5-7 made everything worse, it isn’t the root-cause of the issues, it just brings them to the forefront.
Their entire ****ing balancing is broken beyond salvagability at the moment. Without a broad approach to balancing, this is just going to make everything worse for everyone.
I am rly afraid of this. Overall its a good idea but WG would have to rebalance at least half of the vehicles in the game and get weakspots back. But we all know how bad WG is at balancing even small groups of tanks and now they want to change everything. I smell a disaster.
Income? Dude, the already cut off buying them for gold. And before that no one did anymore anyways because you can buy them for credits.
What is with you dense people still thinking people buy shells for gold still? LOL
Every tank in the game premium or none will be rebalanced if they don’t there will be no world of tanks in 2021
Not true because if they don’t fix it they won’t have a game to feed money into the company
The armor is not a issue it’s the players not working together to take down a tank a type 5 is useless if it is rushed by 3 tanks
The game will be in a better state because players will live longer the high wn8 players will have to switch to AP and play the game as a better team mate the low skill players will adapt and the game will live on
Focus fire I have seen tanks jest get blown up by a good group of tankers.
Fixing the problem: make the damage dependent on how thick the armor you penetratefor every ammo. If you shoot at a light tank with a high pen ammo you do low damage, same goes for the ultra high pen “gold ammo” if you shoot with a 330 pen heat on a 280mm armor or less you should do less damage. That way it would be useful to switch ammo if you need it. So that way light tanks could live longer just as the heavy armored targets.
There is a thing 80% of the gold ammo players forget as soon as they find the “2” key: aiming, shooting other tanks and circling heavys
This feature is 100% free of high credit costs and works >99% of the time(even with tier VIII vs tier X)
But as said, 80% of the gold players forget that
These changes will destroy the game forever.
lol this reminds me of sandbox changes that everyone hated
NO… if they implement +1 -1 and remove all the super heavy tanks like japaneese HT, maurader and tanks like that then ok but i dont wanna fight with tier 8 against type 5 with 30% less dmg, if they do this im out of this because you need gold ammo against +2 tanks specialy against the stupid type 4 – 5 and they wanna nerf dmg? Like this is soo dumb it is not even funny.
Not all t10 tanks have a weakspots penetrable with tier 8 normal amno (***o3? Type5?, Maus?) Not always skill is solution
I just hope they put it on sandbox too later.. we all know the judgement of supertesters…
Also i think after these rebalancing measures they also should decrease the special ammo price, because you already sacrifice dmg and income if u choose to shoot it. It should be more like a choice of different types of ammo rather than having to use the expensive one just to do a little dmg at least, would be much more frustrating if it stays so expensive.
The game thats caled world of tank-s is already dead, nowadays its called Call of duty with pay to win mechanics
the premium ammo changes are good. But they need to nerf regular HE not hesh but regular HE bc now people are spamming tons of HE.
I was under the impression that the Type would be nerfed. T95 has a weakspot on top, Maus in the lower plate, T110E3 is relatively easy to flank, and I find the 257 workable with standard rounds. Honestly, I expect the 430’s and the Defender (at least against its own tier and lower tiers) to be more of a problem.
The thing is (and Quickybaby pointed out this as well) that at the moment, when premium ammo will cease to be a viable option to perform better in given tank, people will stop using it (maybe few rounds here and there). And since they will not use premium ammo, for lot of players it will also mean that they will not need premium account to keep the income flowing.
It will be sufficient to take one of your prem tanks out for a spin. But WG dont get any additional $ from a tank that you already have in your garage and here lies the problem.
You dont have to be genius to realise that…
IDIOTS, OFC THE ARMOR IS AN ISSUE.
LONG GONE ARE THE DAYS WHERE YOU HAD TO AIM TO PEN THOSE SHOTS.
NOW ITS ALL PRESS 2 KEY AND BE ******ED.
THESE CHANGES ARE WELCOMED, BUT YOU NEED TO READD WEAKSPOTS TOO SO HEAVIES DONT BECOME EVEN MORE OP
BRING ****ING JAGARUS AND TDS? SOMEONE???
CAN YOU GET OUT OF YOUR ****ING MED TANK ONLY MENTALITY???
These changes are welcomed. Seeing 10vs10 batchats firing gold at each other is ****ING BORING AND ******ED.
I think this is going the right way. I’d sinply say you need to adjust the percentages between calibre of gun.
Example 150/130mm -25%
120mm -20%
Anything smaller -15%
I think the damage is a little low, but it will definitely stop all the gold spamming noobs in a particular Russian reward medium tank from no skill spamming their way to victory constantly ?
This will work out more for WOIT credit wise. Gold use wont stop, as they are not going to weaken heavily armored tanks. Players will be forced to take a huge loss in credits to get through the game, therefore you will need to play more prem tanks in more games to make up the credits.
Holy **** – A good change for WoT!!!
What will happen to the Type derp gun will it get mor HE pen or will they change it to a regular AP gun????!!!!!
I’m think instead of changing the damage values. I think they should limit the amount of them that you can carry. Maybe 25-30 percent can be gold. The rest has to be the regular round or HE.
Its a simple concept
OP armor > use gold ammo
Gold ammo nerfed > Fewer people using it
Fewer people shooting gold > Less people buying premium time/tanks
Lower premium content sales > Less income for WG
The game has slowly revolved around gold ammo and thus they’ve broken aspects of the game to force people into shooting more of it thus promoting the sale of premium time, boosters, and premium tanks.
You do realize that most people who use gold ammo already carry around that amount. Only time I don’t see it in replays or streams is when its usually someone who is a unicum that carries 50% or more.
Its good until you apply some common sense or logic and notice how its actually going to make the game worse. These changes are basically a buff to all the broken tanks in the game where MM forces 60% to 80% bottom tier games.
If done properly this can be a good change for the game. What I mean first they should nerf armour in general, giving back weakspots, making penning with std rounds much easier, making possible to fight back with standard rounds, doing just this will reduce gold ammo usage.
So in the end you have a choise – aim for certain spots and do full damage or be lazy and just press 2 but you sacrifice your dpm. But knowing wargaming they can screw up very hard.
Currently problem is that many tanks are balanced around gold. For example the most stupid tank is type 5,
10 players shoot type 5, on avarage it dies lets say from 10 shots, on paper it could look similar to other tanks and so balanced but in reality 4 people shooting gold kill it in 5 shots and rest 6 players not shooting gold kill it in 15 shots, in reality making it ******ed.
I guess this is why WG doesn’t make changes quickly…their player base is insane!!!
This is a great change for anyone who aims, those who do not hate it.
When is anyone ever afraid of an E100 or Maus…these are super heavies, they give up DPM and mobility for armour but right now it’s press 2 and their useless.
I’m a light and medium player so this will make things more difficult but I’m up for the challenge. See I’m sure my stats will rise as I aim and don’t just hit the 2 key….guessing the expected will drop on most tanks as people give up dmg for pen.
Gungrave, your common sense really…here’s an idea guys. Your a T8 and you come up on a T10 super heavy….don’t just sit there and waste credits…move to another engagement!!!! You aren’t forced to sit there and engage a tank 2 tiers higher. Common sense people.
You do know that they’re changing matchmaking right? Or are you too dull to research?
@Noth – Not sure why everybody think that QB is some sort of Mr.Right and knows it all..99% of the WoT population is brain dead zombies, so whether they do or don’t shoot premium ammo, they will still rarely make credits.. this is why most now shoot HE in any tank they play, the changes wont change that.
I know they’re doing changes to the MM but its not going to do much considering its still a bracket format. The MM before 3/5/7 was just fine as all they needed to do was restrict arty to just 1 to 2 per game.
thats why they also change the premium account to include other perks … like blacklisting of maps you don’t want to play
more income will not be the primary advantage of premium accounts in the future.
non-premium account will fill the slots of the maps the premium users don’t want to play
Just limit the amount of”gold”ammo to your healthpoints so players must think if it’s necessary and stop brainless spamming
OK, so, now imagine you are trying to get T-44 medium so you play T-43 with full gun and 144 penetration. You meet Tier IX battle where Type 4 Heavy is at the top. Only you and this Type remain in the battle. Both Full HP. Only thing you can penetrate is his hull from the side (140 mm thick armor) or back (150 mm thick armor). And you need to be precisely in direct angle to his side armor. To have maybe 40% chance of penetration. On close combat. You can have all the skill in the world and in the Type 4 can sit 12 year old not skilled kid, you have like 5% chance of success to win the fight.
I think this solution will only make even bigger profound difference between the tiers, making bigger tiers even more supreme and more OP. Especially tanks with thick armor on the top of a matchmaking.
Do you want to nerf gold ammo pen for tier 8 then and be TOTALLY useless against tier 10s? -/+1 tier is ******ed, the tank variety would be low and the game would be boring. and how the fk am I supposed to grind credits and xp in my tier 8 premiums without shooting at tier 10s?????
Stop making **** up. The cost will end up being balanced accordingly, they didn’t say anything about keeping the price the same, and during testing users will wine about it if they didn’t plan for it.
Pardon for my weak vocabulary.
As I said, with the current meta of corridor maps, we as people, are forced to use (gold ammo is a meme, it will never die even if you cant buy it for gold anymore lol) gold ammo to pen tanks which used to have weakspots suitable for normal ammo, but were “enhanced very badly and idiotically” to face gold ammo.
With that in mind the change they are trying to implement is ******ed because it will be an indirect buff to all heavy tanks and heavy armored tds in the game which they dont need.
As so, please return the old weakspots we had in game~
The armor is almost useless in this game, why would they nerf armor????? The reason they do this change on gold is to make armor relevant again lmao. You can penetrate all tanks in this game with standard shells no exception. Let me guess, you’re one of those potatos that think you should penetrate a maus in your tier 8 with standard shells?
@Nathan if you need 3 tanks rushing to kill a type 5 what the **** are you gonna do when there are 5 Type 5s in a game??? rush it with 15 tanks? what are you smoking?
So if the concern is too many players are paying for “special ammo” and that is a disadvantage to those who can not afford to buy it (pay to win concept) why not just reduce the number of rounds of “special ammo” that can be carried to some percentage of the total rounds available to that tank. OR change match making so tier 6’s are not facing tier 8’s or tier 8’s are not facing tier 10’s. Sure a tier 10 is easy meat when you have a numerical advantage and can flank them but straight on and your bouncing AP off their better armor?????????
85% of Players will still use Prem for a number of reasons as I see it, 1. How will you pen the Heavily armored tanks like the Type 5 heavy without Prem ammo? 2. It will give a distinct advantage to players who can afford to fire Pre ammo as they will just use more of it thus giving WG more money than before. Better off leaving the Prem Ammo as it is now unless they carry out big nerfs to overly heavily armoured vehicles first which will never happen as WG will lose money. You have to remember WG are in it the gaming business to earn money