[Sandbox] Crew 2.0 Remastered

Crew 2.0 returned to the Sandbox test server from 20th-26th July 2021 following its poorly-received debut late February 2021. It brought with it a number of changes intended to mitigate concerns raised by the player base following initial testing, and endeavours to achieve a fairer conversion from old to new

In principle, Crew 2.0 is a new crew management and progression concept which generally aims to achieve the following:

- Provide more intuitive and tangible progression system - Provide greater diversity of crew builds to suit individual playstyles - Eliminate variable member numbers/qualifications in favour of a single "crew"

Make no mistake, this is a radical new direction for crew management in World of Tanks. Accordingly it is the subject of much fear and controversy throughout the World of Tanks community. But as humans we fear what we don't understand, combined with much residual hype from the first round of testing it can make it difficult to develop a clear and informed view on the topic. This piece attempts to compare the current crew system to Crew 2.0 and what I think it means for the game.

From the beginning in v1.13

We start this piece by examining what happens when a new crew is recruited. In the current system, the cost of crew recruitment is as follows: - Rapid Course Training (50% Major Qualification) - Free x Number of Crew

- Regimental School (75% Major Qualification) - 20K Credits x Number of Crew

- Tank Academy (100% Major Qualification) - 200 Gold x Number of Crew The effects of your decisions in crew selection in v1.13 are significant. For example, these are the respective performance statistics of the Tier II French Light Tank Renault R35 (Collectors Vehicle):

The disadvantages posed to anything other than a 100% Major-Qualified crew are quite profound where gunnery, agility and viewrange are severely impaired. Players are required to grind through their major qualification in order to improve these basic skills, concurrently with learning the basic mechanics of the game. The amount of experience required to achieve 100% Major Qualification is as follows: - 50% > 75% 22,940EXP

- 75% > 100% 72,544EXP

- 50% > 100% 95,484EXP

At the time of writing, the #1 player in Renault H35 on the World of Tanks Asia Server averaged 506XP per game, meaning even an peak performance it takes a Free-to-Play player ~200 games to grind from 50% to 100% Major Qualification.

From there, players can begin grinding for their Skills and Perks, many of which are considered essential for being remotely competitive. An example of such an essential skill is 6th Sense, which will demand the grinding of a further 210K Experience (or ~270 games for our expert Renault R35 player assuming their accelerated crew training is turned on)

New Crews in Crew 2.0

Crew 2.0 vastly improves the performance and survivability of new crews as follows: - No more Major Qualification grind > All vehicle performance starts per 100% M.Qual

- 6th Sense is provided as standard

- Triangulation (Sound Detection) is provided as standard

These changes remove the most painful part of the grind in World of Tanks, removing the compulsion to spend credits or gold on crew members just to keep them from driving / shooting like complete and utter gumbies.

It can be argued however, that Crew 2.0 has brought the starting line forward but set the finish line is much further away in the race for crew supremacy. This is particularly considered the case when it comes to Prestige levels of crew progression.

Comparing Skill Progression in Crew 2.0

Like the current system, a "law of diminishing returns" applies, however peak skill tree progression is now achieved after grinding out equivalent XP to a 5-Skill Crew in the game currently.

Beyond Level 80, an extremely arduous post-progression through 8 "Prestige" levels begins, with each new level providing further boosts to "vehicle handling" which maxes out at 15%. Vehicle Handling corresponds to all crew-variable chracteristics of the tank (refer to our Renault R35 table above), with the exception of camouflage rating. The effect of maxing out Vehicle Handling via the Prestige Levels is on par with running an additional Food Consumable plus another set of Improved Ventilation, so the battlefield advantages cannot be understated.

The fact that the ability to effectively deliver 6% better DPM with 15% greater accuracy exists in Crew 2.0 has caused much concern. However it should be noted that there are only a handful of ways to achieve the maximum level of Crew Prestige:

- You already have an 8-Skill Crew that can be converted to 80.*

- You have a lazy ~12M Free XP to convert (Note: Free XP : Crew XP conversion is 5:1)

- You grind the Crew

While Crew Books can be used to boost your crew through to Level 80, crew books cannot be used on Prestige progression thus there is no way to pay your way to the top. An extraordinary amount of effort would be required to grind out a sufficient amount of Elite XP for conversion to Free XP using gold, to then be converted to Crew XP. Bear in mind, that Elite XP will also be competing with your desire to invest in Field Modifications after v1.14 goes live.

Critics of Prestige Progression have called this move "game breaking" but the reality is that the vast majority of players will not get anywhere near such a level of progression. In your day-to-day Random battles, the vast majority of players is exactly what you encounter. The net result of Crew Prestige is a "reward for effort" for those few players who have focussed on and ground a particular crew to 8-Skills, or those mad enough to grind millions of Elite XP and drop the equivalent monetary value of a top-of-the-line GPU to convert it to Free XP with gold once they get there.

Converting Crews in Crew 2.0

Prudent stat-watchers observed that the crew-dependant characteristics of their vehicles became appreciably worse after conversion to the Crew 2.0 system during its February debut. This was a function of the loss of the "Commanders Bonus". The Commanders Bonus occurs where the training level of the commander extracts a further 10% from the crew, i.e. Crews would perform at 110% if the Commander a chieved 100% Major Qualification.

In the latest Crew 2.0 Sandbox test, this has been corrected and a Level 1 crew now performs equally or better following conversion. Players can therefore be assured that crews that they have carefully curated, upgraded and spend gold/credits to preserve EXP during retraining/requalification will not lose combat effectiveness as a result of conversion to Crew 2.0 By way of demonstration I present my top crews from Tiers VI-X below and their pre-post converstion stats.

Multi-Vehicle Crews

One of the most well-recieved features of Crew 2.0 has been the ability to specialise your crews on multiple vehicles, conceptually at least. It has simultaneously caused concern about wasted efforts training multiple crews all the way up the tech tree due to massive crew redundancy.

Fortunately redundant crews will eventually be turned into Crew books, provided that they were sent to the barracks prior to the patch dropping. This requires some planning, preparation and possibly investment in additional bunks (300G buys you 16 bunks presently). The idea is to ensure every crew member that you expect to become redundant in Crew 2.0 is clear of their vehicle before the patch drops.

Consider the flowchart below... (click the image to enlarge if it seems a bit squinty)

My current Centurion Action X crew converts to Level 39, entitling the crew to another vehicle specialisation. Adding Centurion AX's Tier IX predecessor, Centurion 7/1, will result in a dip of 0-89K EXP depending on my appetite to spend credits or gold. This is more than made up for by sending my Centurion 7/1 crew to barracks pre-patch and waiting for them to convert to Crew Books. While I might lose 89K Experience from Free Specialisation training, I ultimately gain 940K Experience in UK Crew Books from patiently waiting for the redundant Cent 7/1 crew to convert. This bumps the Centurion AX / Centurion 7/1 crew to Level 52 whereupon the third vehicle specialisation comes available. This is a far better solution for me than running two separate crews in their "late level 30's"

Repeating the process, I can then add my Centurion 1 as the third specialisation. The previous Centurion 1 crew will have also been "Bunked and Booked" for a 680K EXP windfall that more than offsets to the 183K EXP lost by adding the specialisation for free. The net result is that a little patience and preparation, minimal effort is wasted and all three vehicles will perform significantly better than they do currently.

Pro tip: Buy more barrack slots or kick low-skilled reservists to make room! There's no point housing a bunch of 100% Major-Qualified reservists that'll convert to 95K EXP when you could house an experienced (but soon-to-be redundant crew member) for many times the EXP value.

Skills and Talents in Crew 2.0

The Crew Skill Tree is comprised of 5 Training Courses, broadly defined as follows:

- Tactical Training - Improves target acquisition and mobility - Gunnery Training - Improves DPM and accuracy - Technical Training - Improves survivability - Driver Training - Improves mobility and actions on the move - Operational Training - Improves crew situational responses

Each Training Course comprises 5 Skills, where each skill has 10 levels of progression where the benefits of each level of progression are clearly visible. The current crew system lack transparency on this, as the benefits are outlined in principle but exact figures are not shown until you have committed to training in the particular skill.

Every time your crew hits a new Level from 2 to 80, you earn another skill point to assign. Once 30 skill points are assigned in a particular school, you will have a choice of one of two Talents. Talents provide significant situational bonuses to tankers who demonstrate effective gameplay according to the role of the vehicle.

Each skill / talent does either of the following:

- Provides a flat bonus to vehicle characteristics

- Reduces RNG associated with vehicle characteristics

- Provides a situational bonus to vehicle characteristics to reward play-to-role

- Provides an escalating bonus to reward battlefield performance

The final point is highlighted as it is a concerning one. While skills that reward causing damage to the enemy with the capacity to cause greater damage might help some players make a crucial contribution to a collapsing match, more likely it will add to the "Snowball Effect" of games. This is unlikely to be helpful in improving the broader quality of gameplay when tankers already feel that 15:<5 results are over-represented. Greater steps to address like-for-like vehicle pairings in the matchmaker are necessary before I could be comfortable endorsing mechanics that exacerbate incidence of snowball game results.

With 80 skill points available from Crew Levelling and 250 potential homes for those skillpoints, players need to be considerate of where they spend their points. Too much investment into stealth and concealment might turn your tank into a ninja but is likely to impact firepower. Either way, the most successful builds on the battlefield will use a balance of skills that complement a tankers preferred playstyle.

All existing crew skills with the exception of Mentor (no longer applicable due to single-portrait crews) carry over into Crew 2.0 per the tables below. Many existing skills that are often overlooked by players in their first 2-3 skill accruals have been merged in Crew 2.0 in order to improve their utility. This is in a similar vein to Equipment 2.0 items such as "Modified Configuration" or "Improved Hardening".

Instructors

For the most part, the Crew 2.0 skill tree does not boost passive vehicle characteristics beyond what exists in the game currently. Instructors change all that, and provide players with opportunities to go beyond the limitations of the Skill Tree.

Instructors are what becomes of unique commanders from special events such as the Holiday Ops Snow Maidens or Battle Pass Commanders. They provide different abilities depending on their classification:

Standard: +2 Skill Points to a Skill (+1 if >10 already invested) +10% Crew XP

Valuable: +5/+2 Skill Points (+2/+2 if >10 already invested) +40% Crew XP

Unique: +10/+10/+4 Skill Points (+4/+4/+4 if >10 already invested) +100% Crew XP

An instructor slot comes available from Level 20, with another three opening up as the crew gains experience. Standard Instructors take up a single slot, while Valuable Instructors take up two due to their significant improvement. Unique Instructors take up four slots, but are more likely to be exclusively paired to vehicles such as Sabaton with Primo Victoria or Offspring with TL-1-LPC.

Instructors will be used in different ways for different reasons by different people, but generally they could use Instructors to:

- Increase training in incomplete or underinvested skills

- Overcharging fully-trained skills beyond skill tree limitations (up to 40%)

Again, the final highlighted point presents an area of concern, having been the cause of much hype in the YouTubeosphere. But as discussed in the distribution of skill points, using Instructors to build a one-trick pony will create amazing capabilities but limit overall combat effectiveness.

Critics of the Instructor mechanic point out that they introduce a much broader skill gap between veteran and developing crews. This is because as more Instructor Slots come available, greater capacity exists to access more skills or multiply the effects of trained skills. It should be noted however, that Skill Point investment via Instructors will not provide access to additional talents.

Directives in Crew 2.0

Currently Directives have the effect of either granting skills that a crew is otherwise untrained for, or increasing its effect.

In Crew 2.0, Directives tie directly to the Skill Matrix, where they will add +5 Skill Points to the Skill corresponding to the Directive to a maximum of 11/10.

In many cases, the effects of directives becomes much more subtle, i.e.

- Combat Course Directive v1.13 increases traverse speed by 5%

- Combat Course Directive Crew 2.0 increases traverse speed by 0.5-2.5%

Other directives such as Natural Cover, will not max out the corresponding characteristic value any more than the v1.13 directive allows.

The effect of Directives in Crew 2.0 is nowhere near as dramatic as that of Instructors, but in combination with a "One Trick Pony" build of Instructors they could yield a 50% boost to a particular characteristic. Much hype has been made of this combined effect on Concealment for example, but again the most successful builds will require balance to ensure other aspects of combat effectiveness are not compromised.

It should be noted that like Instructors, Skill Point investment via Directives will not provide access to additional talents.

The Direction of World of Tanks after Crew 2.0

When it comes to popular "tank simulator" game titles, World of Tanks is arguably the one with more "arcadey" and less-realistic feel. This is done in the name of providing dynamic gameplay and a fun-factor that doesn't exist in other titles that aspire more to realism and historical accuracy. While many might complain about the occasional defiance of physics in World of Tanks, realism brings with it many inconveniences that are far from fun. Other titles will punish you by throwing a track because you drove over a small rock too quickly, or apply critical game-ending damage with practically every penetrating hit.

The palette of skills in Crew 2.0 arguably extends the arcade nature of the game, particularly in tandem with Instructors. This has the effect of further differentiating it from competing titles, but may alienate those players for whom historical accuracy is a key attraction for their choice of game title.

One of the primary intended outcomes of Crew 2.0 is more diversity of crew builds, where players can use the Skill Tree, Instructors and Directives to either create a balanced fighting machine or a situational-but-deadly specialist. Players can tailor their builds to suit their preferred playstyle, extracting as much as possible from their game. This converges nicely with the objectives of Field Modifications, coming soon in v1.14. Further Sandbox testing combining the Crew 2.0 mechanic as well as Field Modifications will be necessary, however, to ensure that overpowered builds do not become commonplace.

New players with new crews start off from a vastly improved position, where they are no longer compelled to spend gold or credits to avoid being deaf and blind glonks. Their competition, however, may enjoy significantly broader advantages over them than exists in the current crew system. Consider the curious case of the "invisible arsehole" M10 RBFM that makes careers of ruining the aspirations of new players.

A new crew in Crew 2.0 enjoys a 28% improvement to viewrange than a 50% Major-Qualified crew in v1.13, however an individual possessed of desire to be a special order of flog has the capacity to enjoy even greater advantage over new players on basic characteristics. Predominantly this is a result of a potential 40% bonus available from Instructors, as well as a potential 7.5% bonus available from Prestige levels.

While a 0-Skill Crew is rarely likely to succeed in a 1v1 against an 8-Skill Crew, it should also not be forgotten that some new skills have the capacity to significantly enhance battlefield performance and contribute to a "snowball effect" against the enemy team. Lower tiers, more replete with new players, become particularly sensitive to this effect. A more creative solution to mitigate the effects of career-clubbers should be adopted to ensure the expanded skill gap of Crew 2.0 does not unduly impact new players coming to grips with the game.

A possible solution was discussed in a previous article, which could show great promise in maintaining quality gameplay without resorting to skill-based matchmaking. This is achieved by adjusting the game economy and queue priority depending on where a player is queuing up proportionately to their abilities: (https://pr154wot.wixsite.com/pr154/post/musings-fantasising-about-your-butt)

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