Hi Tankers!
February and March have seen a series of promising isolated Sandbox Tests of a reworked HE mechanic and a rebalancing of SPG's to make them a more tactical class for SPG-players and less frustrating class for everyone else. With predominantly positive feedback from the community and in conjunction with corroborating data, the current round of Sandbox testing combined the proposed changes to SPG's and HE Shells and could be ready for Common Test Server rollout as early as May!
High Explosive Shells in v1.12
High Explosive shells are currently used by players in situations where they want to practically guarantee damage will occur to the target. This could be as a finishing move for a low-hitpoint enemy tank, or resetting a base capture timer.
The raw destructive power of a penetrating HE shell makes for very fun tanks to play such as KV-2 and KV-2(R), or otherwise become one of the few redeeming features of tanks such as Senlac or leKpz M41 90.
In many cases, HE shells are the sole resort to cause damage to enemy tanks who are positioned to make the most of their armour profile such as hull-down Super Conquerors or side-scraping Object 705A's. This is down to the way that HE damage is calculated.
HE shells are not reknowned for their raw penetration power, although should the HE shell penetrate you're in for a very bad day. If the HE shell doesn't penetrate, then a complex set of calculations are triggered to determine the damage caused.
Every HE shell has a burst radius, therefore armour thickness within that burst radius that is less than the penetration value of the shell will be penetrated. Commonly this point of penetration might occur on more thinly-armoured surfaces such as hull decks, roof decks, engine decks or cupolas. The amount of damage caused on a non-penetration is half of the penetrating damage, further modified down by factors such as whether the tank has a spall liner, the thickness of the armour penetrated and the distance from the point of impact to the point of penetration. If these modifiers can reduce the calculated damage to zero or below, then no hitpoint damage will be inflicted on the target vehicle.
The Case for Changing HE Shells
High Explosive Shells as we have them today represents one of the oldest mechanics in World of Tanks, and as such it has a number of legacy issues that need to be revisited.
With burst radius being the driving force as to whether a non-penetration causes damage or not, tanks with small-medium calibre guns are placed at significant disadvantage where neither their standard nor premium ammunition choices can cause damage to a well-entrenched enemy. HE shells therefore find low utility in the absence of a larger calibre or an unusually high penetration value. Short of an across-the-board increase in penetration or nominal damage, a HE mechanic less reliant on burst radius is required to improve utility of HE shells in small-medium calibre guns.
Consider the calculation of non-penetrating damage. The problem with this model is that there are an infinite number of possible combinations of penetrable armour thickness versus the draw distance from the point of impact. For the game to run seamlessly, this infinite possibility of iterations must be calculated immediately and a damage result applied. Will a well-armoured cupola close to the point of impact substantially absorb the hit, or will a decent chuck of damage be caused by calculating a longer draw-distance to the engine deck? The answer is never clear, and arguably not reliable either and leads to great unpredictability as to the damage a non-penetrating hit will cause.
Spaced armour currently protects a vehicle from the full force of a HE shell, even if the armour behind the spaced armour could otherwise be penetrated by the shell. By creating a standoff distance between the shell impact and the tanks armour, HE dramatically loses its effectiveness against vehicles such as EBR 105 and Sheridan where one would ordinarily expect to tear away large chunks of hitpoints. This can be a source of frustration for players, particularly when attempting to counter wheeled vehicles, which are difficult to hit even at the best of times.
More broadly, the developers of World of Tanks appear to be attempting to shift the game away from the arcade and more towards the tactical, rewarding players for playing smarter and playing to the role of the vehicle. The "Press 3, Right-Click, Left-Click" model that exists for some tanks with large-calibre guns is somewhat contrary to this ideal.
Additionally, there are some tanks in the game which have been earned by experienced players through a steady diet of blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights on Clan Campaigns or Personal Campaigns which have a tendency to be "balanced" by the destructive power of HE shells spat from the likes of 60TP Lewandowskiego or FV 4005 Stage II. Although the drivers of T95/FV4201 Chieftains and Object 279(e)'s are unlikely to attract much sympathy from the broader player base, the overriding principal is that despite playing and angling the tank in its optimal armour facing, any tanks armour can be made irrelevant by sustained crudely-aimed hits by high-explosive shells.
HE Shells on the Sandbox Test Server
In the quest to reshape High Explosive shells to suit a more tactical game, The revised mechanic does a couple of things:
Damage from Sandbox HE is only calculated from the point of impact, eliminating burst radius as a factor as to whether or not damage is called. This significantly improves the relevance of small-medium calibre HE shells, whose effectiveness is no longer limited by their ability to reach a penetrable surface.
To determine damage from a non-penetration, the Sandbox HE mechanic simulates the effect of spalling. This is where the shockwave of the shell bursting against the exterior armour causes fragmentation of the inside armour face. Unfortunately the exact equation adopted is unclear, however testing reveals a significant reduction in damage caused to thick armour by inherently low-penetration shells that
Taking some poetic license in defiance of the way HE shells exist in reality, Sandbox HE shells no longer explode on contact with intervening terrain or spaced armour. Instead these obstacles take away from the penetrating potential of the shell once it makes contact with armour. This means that spalling damage is unlikely to occur if a Sandbox HE shell hits a thick gun mantlet but is likely to pass through the many layers of thin spaced armour represented by the wheels of EBR 105's.
The Case against Reworking HE Shells
While the community was broadly supportive of the proposed changes to the HE mechanic, many were left wondering "Why change HE in the first place?". Was Wargaming attempting to fix something that nobody felt was broken? If anything, if the objective was to restore the relevance of heavy armour then addressing the liberal distribution of artillery shells from above and premium ammunition from the ground would be more likely to please the heavy tank players.
Reducing the effectiveness of derp shells fired in a "Right-Click, Left-Click" manner may well be intended to encourage a more tactical approach to dealing with well-entrenched enemy tanks, however while it is possible to show players a door they still need to walk through it. Picking up the sense of tactical nous to push with numbers, focus fire, share out hitpoints and flank distracted enemy tanks does not happen overnight.
Given that it's arguably the prammo rather than the HE shells that should be put under the microscope as a means of encouraging more tactical play, it is reasonable to expect that the "Press 22 to Win" mechanic should be the next game element to be Sandboxed in the quest for a more tactical game.
Unfortunately with a limitless budget of gold and credits on the Sandbox Test Server, it has been difficult to make an objective assessment as to whether players subjected to HE 2.0 in a live server environment would take a more tactical approach to their game or just premium ammunition in lieu of HE.
Credit: u/tuco_salamanca_84
Preliminary Results - HE Sandbox
Despite the compelling cases for and against the HE rebalance, developers had not observed radically reduced or improved performance in any particular vehicles in the first HE Sandbox.
Even with non-penetrations causing less damage per shot, average damage inflicted by tanks doctrinally armed with HE shells didn't significantly drop. This may be explained by the fact that the number of hitpoints in the fight didn't change, it just took longer and with more shots for the exchange of gunfire to fully erode them.
It was reported that vehicles such as EBR 105 and Sheridan naturally experienced a drop in their survivability due to the loss of protection afforded by spaced armour, however their agility facilitated higher nominal damage per game. This is most likely due to reduced effectiveness of spaced armour against Sandbox HE shells, particularly where the spaced armour was protecting thinner armour at the flanks of enemy vehicles.
Accordingly, vehicle characteristics have not been altered in the combined HE & SPG Sandbox Test although that's not to say they won't be analysed more closely in pre-rollout supertesting.
SPG's in the last Sandbox Server
The state of play of SPG's and proposed Sandbox changes to this controversial class of vehicle was covered in detail in a previous article, linked below:
Broadly speaking the changes introduced included:
- More obvious artillery shell tracers to improve effectiveness of SPG counter-fire - Adding shell impact points to the minimap to help deduce enemy SPG positions - Added Commander Perk "Sound Detection" and reworked Loader Perk "Intuition" - Increased variety of SPG shell types while eliminating SPG premium ammunition
Almost all of the above changes were received positively, and while derided by arty players even the "Sound Detection" perk was positively received on the balance of things. Despite the expanded toolkit available to help locate and counter enemy artillery, the incidence of counter-battery fire didn't appear to increase over live server levels. This part is surprising because the first thing I did when I was playing the Sandbox Test Server was play to neutralise enemy artillery as a priority, but then that's just how I SPG. Others might chase the damage/XP, but I want my team to win. Distribution of shell usage in the Tier X artillery pieces was roughly: - 46% Standard (HE with Large Burst, Stun, Moderate Damage, Low Penetration)
- 39% Alternative (HE with Small Burst, No Stun, High Damage, Marginal Penetration) - 15% Tactical (AP / HEAT, No Stun, High Damage, High Penetration) With fewer shells flying through the air causing stunning, the Sandbox analytics revealed non-SPG tank classes experienced a nominal 60-65% reduction in stun time.
SPG's in this HE + SPG Sandbox Server
Alternative and Tactical shells had lower trajectories and thus shorter flight times than the Standard shells, which many players felt limited their ability to use the shells effectively in the field. The Combined Sandbox Test sees both of these shell types enjoy a higher trajectory, but a slower flight time.
The higher trajectory of the Alternative Shells means more likelihood of striking penetrable armour on roofs or engine decks, thus their penetration has been curtailed by 17% which damage has been adjusted by +5% depending on the tank involved.
While the usage of the Tactical Shells aligned with pre-sandbox forecasts of 10-15%, many players were unhappy with the resultant damage per minute (DPM), particularly given the ability of tanks to avoid incoming fire due to the new "Sound Detection" perk. Even Object 261, the fast-firing scourge of Tier X, can only pull together a base of ~970DPM. The damage of these shells was increased by about 10% across the board.
Conclusions
In order to work effectively in the field, the revised mechanics elevate that all-important requirement that players of all classes work together and play to the relative strengths of their vehicles to bring about victory for the team. Without it, Heavy Tanks playing from well-entrenched positions have the ability to play to their strengths almost unchecked.
While artillery might ordinarily be a sensible counter to the dug-in Heavy Tank, SPG's are now made more vulnerable to counter-battery fire thanks to new mechanics enabling players to locate them. Hell will have no fury like the team whose SPG's win the counter-battery fight, and going forward will potentially wield a readily adaptable shell loadout for whatever the tactical situation.
For many tankers, playing the same old way in blissful ignorance of WASD, penetration indicators or group-push tactics will put them further behind their peers as efforts to develop a meta rewarding applied tactics over simple brute force.
With generally positive community support for the proposed mechanics tested in the preliminary Sandbox tests, and a set of results in line with expectations, the HE and SPG Rework appear to be on-track for further Supertesting and then onto the Common Test Server.
These changes are not final however, and when you love the proposed changes or hate the proposed changes, this is your best opportunity to get involved and make your opinion count through in-game survey and hard data from participation in the Sandbox Test.
For more information or to join the Sandbox Test Server, please visit:
Comentários