World of Tanks 2019: Premium Ammo Rebalancing
3 min readWargaming Fest 2018 was held last Saturday and was an event full of announcements for 2019. Wargaming is looking to bring long-awaited/demanded changes to World of Tanks, maybe in the hopes of saving it as the CIS server population has been dropping drastically.
Majority of the announced changes should have been implemented at least two years ago, but at least we are now seeing Wargaming reacting to communities around the globe. Please note, none of these changes is a response to Community Contributors latest videos/articles, Wargaming had all these in the works for months but decided to keep Community Contributors in the dark, as per usual.
Premium Ammo Rebalancing
In May 2018 Wargaming has removed the Gold price for Premium ammo and consumables, it was the first step taken towards rebalancing ammo. Due to these changes using the terms Premium or Gold ammo isn’t suitable any more and Wargaming is now addressing it as Special Ammo.
After the waiting period Wargaming needed to decrease the amount of special ammo bought with Gold, Wargaming is now ready to start reworking on rebalancing it. Currently, we have to live with the constant Special Ammo spam across the battlefields, where players only trade-off credits for a higher penetration value, no real loss for any player who is high on credits and a no-brainer to use.
It took eight months for us to finally know what Wargaming plan is, but does it come as surprise at all?
Wargaming Rebalance Plan
The main objective is to help player choose and use an ammunition loadout that isn’t made just of Special or Normal ammo. Wargaming wants players to evaluate the advantages of different shells and take into account the outcome of their choices.
With that said, Wargaming is planning to implement the following changes:
- Standard AP shells: make them more attractive in terms of cost and damage. They will have high damage per shot and will be cheaper, but won’t have a high value of penetration.
- Special AP/APRC/HEAT shells: keep penetration but lower damage. Special ammo will be more expensive than regular ammo, but they will have high penetration with lower damage. A reduction of 25% to 30% will be implemented dependant on damage per shot, the more damage, the greater the percentage of reduction.
- High explosive shells: Unclear what will happen, but SPG and Type4/5 cases will be looked at and rebalanced too. More information as soon it’s available.
What comes next?
Wargaming will now start gathering feedback, based on it they will decide if they will test these changes or not. If everything goes well and as planned, Wargaming will try to balance the cost of all shells, depending on their effectiveness and how often they are chosen.
There might be cases where it will be necessary to change the cost ratio or the characteristics of a vehicle, as it would be impractical to think that one-size-fits-all. The final decision about these changes has not been made yet, so share your concerns and thoughts if you wish to impact the game in a positive manner.
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I hope that they leave things like HESH for the ****barn alone…
This was already done in World of Tanks Blitz. APCR and HEAT inflict 15% less damage.
HESH has stayed as it was (no ****barn in blitz but we still have the deathstar and FV4202)
1st error: Let people buy “gold” ammo for credits. This move increased the amount of gold ammo shot in all the game. Previoously, it was mainly used for clan wars…
2nd error: Then bring in tanks designed to withstand those new rounds by increasing the armor of those tanks to resist these special ammo, and by doing so all regular tanks are at a disavantage, Thus the new defender, buff to Mous etc.
World of Pz.Kpfw II Ausf J coming to a server near you
All shells should cost the same. What WG are about to create now is a situation where only players with an excess of credits will be able to use this “speciul” ammo. What about all other players? They will still be bound to only the standard shells, giving them a m***ive disadvantage as soon as they encounter something that requires more penetration to pierce. I really hope that WG don’t make this mistake.
Even in WT better ammo usually costs more.
If they drop the damage by 25%, they should, in turn, drop the cost by 25%. Mainly, because they will be making less credits per game with the decreased damage of gold shells, yet still have the inherent high costs. Overall though this is something I’ve been wanting for the longest time…
If players with an excess of credits want to nerf their own DPM by using nothing but gold ammo, more power to them.
Wrote that “lower damage one” years ago in forums …. Kinda DUH…..
No brainer.
Thanks for mentioning that Quicky isn’t Jesus.
A small symbolic cost difference is fine, such as the cost difference between standard AP and standard HE. But having shells that are multiple times more expensive is not good for the game. Look at the Panther for example. Premium rounds are 28 times more expensive than the standard rounds. On the T-62A and Leopard 1 the premium rounds are 4 times more expensive. Players should base their ammo decision on the tactical situation, not their economical situation. Credits should never be a balancing factor in battles because that’s what contributes directly/indirectly to P2W.
You’re misunderstanding the problem completely. What are you going to do with your DPM if you can’t penetrate the enemies armor? Thus, you will sometimes have to use the rounds with higher penetration but lower damage. That trade-off is really good and I’m not complaining about that. But the cost should not be part of the in-battle decision making. Credits should never be a balancing factor in battles because that’s what contributes directly/indirectly to P2W.
You’re not thinking this through. As far as I can see there is going to be two issues with this plan. Number one if you are faced with a well armoured tank that you can’t penetrate and cant out flank you will just spend 25-30% more in the “ex gold” rounds. Second DPM is a made up figure if you take into account RNG, in other words will you missing, will it bounce or will it pen all of these things just lower DPM. So there is your choice spend 25-30% more or just don’t pen the target and do less DMP anyway
Lowering the premium damage by 25-30% is not the correct solution. I think a far better idea would be to limit the amount of “gold” rounds you can carry, that way you will be forced to make a tactical choice as to when and where and at what target you will use them on.
Special ammo David. Special ammo. 😀 Jokes aside, limiting might be good, but leaves the same issue where it costs a fortune and you have no real down side for using it aside the fact you got limited amount…
please someone post this on their stupid forum…because im banned for my “wanted” feedback
premium ammo is called like this because its PRICE is a premium price !
If they do not make it standard almost nothing will be changed !
in present players choose this stupid ammo by 2 reasons, not only 1. First, they choose it for penetration without drawbacks, and in this case they have no problems with money.
Second they choose it after their posibilities, wich make this ammo p2w in fact.
Now they give it a drawback (FINALLY) but how do you want it to be a tactical choice if its price is still a PREMIUM PRICE ???
Next, penetration values for some tanks NEED to be lowered too (ex. T54)
Tanks need rebalance most of them, aka. WEAKPOINTS BACK along with this ammo change.
for HESH rounds must be done same change , lower damage. Why? Because HESH is nothing else than better HE now.
for fArtys, something simmilar too…less damage or less pen in exchange for this increased splash…
easy fix..
Conclusion…COSTS MUST BE AROUND SAME, if not you simply cant make a tactical choice, just a cost one, and not only damage must be adjusted.
*edit
This is a very VERY good choice (or start) but simply wont work if its not done properly !
Let me explain something to all those who say about lower dpm…bla bla.
First, are you aware that with your hyperpen you simply negate enemy armor?? You negate a factor in game and dont lose anything now.
Ok, can be accepted IF YOU LOSE SOMETHING IN EXCHANGE. You want to negate armor? Then i want to negate your DPM. Simple as that and most important – FAIR !
Now, you know what really happens in wot in present?
A LOT of players simply CANT DO ANYTHING to some certain tanks because THAY CANT AFFORD premium ammo. so they to exactly nothing !
With this change, ALL PLAYERS WILL BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING, even if its with “lower DPM” is still MUCH BETTER THAN NOTHING.
Why? Because is not anymore a choice based on costs wich a lot of players simply cant afford, is a tactical choice !
With other words…this dpm nerf is nothingelse than a premium p2w players nerf, for all others is a BUFF ! Wich overall means…guess what..:
BALANCED !
But like i said, this is true ONLY if they adjust costs too !
is WT a p2w game like wot??
i really want another game but not just another p2w one..
I can help you post it, but can you send me a PM on the forums even if you’re banned? For some reason the webpage doesn’t allow me to select the text you wrote. Weird.
The paradigm you describe is what currently exists. High pen rounds are always much more expensive. The improvement they are talking about is reducing the damage per shot. In other words those people who only load high pen ammo already pay a fortune and just don’t care. They may continue to do so but their DPM drops 25-30%. Given that many of the high pen spammers pay very close attention to their stats this will likely give them more reason to think about standard ammo at higher damage and try for the weak spot now.
I get the logic. I would prefer to see a cap on high pen rounds in your ammo load out, but this might work. I will be interested to see.
Capping high pen ammo in addition to the damage changes is the comprehensive solution. Ammo should be a resource to manage in game like HP. As you say if you put in a cap alone then people will burn out what they have every battle. Limiting their DPM while capping the quan***y of high pen ammo forces players to think about what type of ammo is best for each situation they are in which really should be the end goal.
Read all your ideas and I really think there are many good ones.
There is one point I wan’t to mention, I am not saying I have a solution for it but still.
For me neerfing the premium ammo is STUPID cause in the end its a buff for all heavily armored tanks… Maus and especially Typ5, Defender, Chrysler K, etc. Now it takes even longer to take them out of the game, so now what, change the HP for all heavy tanks? But than it’s the same, or not?
The only thing I can come up with is, lower the price only then it’s special ammo and how about a change that heat and apcr(premium) have a bigger RNG? Like it is now, or even better only up to 0 and less -25% of damage, never above, maybe HE/HESH as well?? And only standard AP has less RNG lets say 10%!!!
I hope you all understand my point?
Till then see you on the battlefield.
GG
They said that penetration of special ammo didn’t change but I must disagree. I have 5 of these special ammo per tank, and using them when necessary. Have to say that they do no better penetration than normal AP, for some reason they seems to ricoched much easier than normal AP, and no effect to Type 5 heavy at all even hitting to turrent from side with Rhm WT 128mm (Type turrent side 210mm, WT special ammo 310mm penetration). Waste of credit I say, better use HE, at least then you get some DPM.