Covert Disclosures No4: Info & Q&A with WT Game Director, Viacheslav Bulannikov!

Hi there everyone, it’s magazine2 reporting in. Today I’d like to go through some information to keep you in the loop — we’re in the last stages of 2024 and this is a busy time for the dev team. This will also be the last update from the CM team in 2024!

Free Snail Decal! To start off, the CM team wanted to give you a free decal as a gift and token of appreciation to all of you. Designed by the CM team especially for this post series, the code is hidden somewhere in this article (it’s really not hard to find, don’t worry!).

Once you find it, head here[store.gaijin.net] and activate it on your account. Important: make sure to login to the game after activating the decal on the website, as if you don’t, it won’t activate on your account at all.

Once you’ve logged in this decal can be found under Special > Snails in the decal customization menu. The code is valid until December 26th (07:00 GMT). Enjoy!



Reflecting on the Firebirds Major Update

The major update was large in terms of graphical changes and the introduction of ray tracing. These types of additions take a lot of development time and did bring issues at first for some players which were unintentional. The dev and QA team worked hard on rectifying these issues as soon as they could, we appreciate your patience with this and reports on these issues. The entire team is grateful for your help and sorry for any disruption to your game time.

Coming on to major feedback that was collected by the team. Many thanks to everyone who left feedback, especially constructive criticism. Here’s some replies from the devs that I’ve picked out from our doc. Other technical information on vehicles or their ordnance will be spread around by other CM’s on the forums. If you’d like to see if we have some responses to particular feedback, then feel free to ask and we’ll try to provide you with answers if we have some.

“Missile Evaded” message: We analyzed player feedback and decided to improve this feature. In some modes it will be completely hidden (SB), and in the rest (AB, RB) it will be possible to hide it or leave it at the player’s discretion. Evasion statistics in the debriefing menu will remain for all modes. We’re working on the ability to hide or enable the message at the moment, if everything goes fine this option will be available soon.

Asking for Soviet top tier jet improvements: Currently regarding statistics US aircraft are in the lead with Soviet aircraft slightly behind, though not significantly enough to where they require better weaponry. From looking at the preliminary data, the addition of advanced weaponry as suggested by players would tip the scales drastically in the other direction, here we’re talking about the RVV-MD close-range missile. Also brought up were R-77-1 medium-range missiles, though regarding energy these don’t differ much from the R-77 already in the game.

Newly added helicopters lacking the new heli damage model: The devs are working on this, updated heli DM will be coming in the future for the helis released in the Firebirds major update.



Reflecting on the New Player Card Our goal When the devs first started working on the new player profile, the goal in mind was to make it more simplistic and without information overload, which is why the player card only has one showcase and information is spread out rather than it all being in one place. The devs also wanted player cards to be unique and special to each player, with the ability to showcase cool achievements that they’ve earned, or show off a rare vehicle that they’re proud of, for example.

Reflection
When the major update released, one of the main talking points was the new player card and we relayed this information to the dev team. In hindsight, the team realises that releasing the player card with missing information beforehand was not very effective. Our aim was to release new player card “showcases” gradually rather than all at once as many of them take a while to program and implement into the game as there is a lot of old and intricate data to handle. After design, implementing such a card takes a considerable amount of time with the GUI designers, and handling a huge amount of historic data is a careful process. We’re going to learn from this.

We had a lengthy discussion with the devs about its design based on feedback. We considered that it could be rolled back to the old one in the meantime while more features were added, however this was not plausible due to technical reasons and the fact that we’d have to maintain the new and old version, causing further delays.

We understand the feedback about its design and display of information, but as of now the devs will be keeping it in terms of layout. Having said this, we’ll be adding the missing information gradually (more on that below), but the current layout and display of information on the Player Card will remain how it is.

In total, the devs have more than a dozen different showcases planned which will be added over time. If developed in time for the December major update, the following five showcases are planned to be added. However just a warning that there is a chance they might not make in December, which means they’ll come sometime in early 2025 instead.

1. Vehicle Collector. Shows the total number of vehicles on your account, and separately for each nation.
   
   
2. Atomic Ace. Unlocked when receiving the “Doomsday!” award. Shows the total number of awards received. We plan to add all previously received awards to the counter.
   
   
3. Peacemaker. Unlocked when receiving the “Peaceful atom” award. Shows the total number of awards received. Likewise we plan to add all previously received rewards to the counter.
   
   
4. Battle-Hardened. You can choose one of the gamemodes. For this mode, the player’s skill-dependent statistics for the last month and place in the leaderboard (by PvP-rating) will be shown: number of battles; percentage of victories; average relative position; player k/d; AI k/d; average score; place in the leaderboard and pvp-rating.
   
   
5. Favorite Vehicle. You can choose one vehicle from your collection and the mode (AB/RB/SB). For this vehicle, in the selected mode, the statistics from the “Service Record” menu will be shown: number of battles; number of victories; number of spawns; number of deaths; number of kills.
   

We also have some more showcases planned, they will likely be added in the spring:

• Achievement Hunter.
  
• Squadron Warrior.
  
• Medalist.
  
• Title Collector.
  
• Decal Collector.
  
• Decorator Collector.
  
• Ace of Spades.

Profile Background & Avatar Frames Customization Additionally, if all goes to plan, in the December major update, the devs plan to add profile background customization. There will be 7 free profile backgrounds that the player can choose from and ways to get other ones through events and for Golden Eagles. As mentioned above, no promises if this will come in the December major, they may be pushed back to early 2025, but they’re in the works!

Avatar frames will also be added as well, perhaps in the December major as well. When they’re first added, they’ll also be free with some paid ones (ranging from 500 to 1,000 GE, prices might change) much like how profile icons work. And as mentioned already, we can’t say for sure whether they’ll be ready for the December update and may be pushed back as well, but they’re being worked on!

KV-7 vs KV-7 Event Reflections

The dev team and CM team collaborated on this event to create it together, we experimented with a new type of event whereby there was the same type of vehicle vs itself. We wanted to do something fun and unique for the game’s 12th anniversary here, which was the main reason there was only 12 IS-7s given away.

We’ve collected feedback on this event and will look to improve similar ones in the future. They may or may not return in some aspect, perhaps as a fun little weekend addition or even not at all, no promises from us on this. We’re still analysing and thinking of ways to improve them and make them as fun as possible without the feeling of a “marathon”. Thanks to everyone who participated in this event and left feedback on it and congrats to the 12 IS-7 winners!

Be sure to activate the code NOSEKRITPLS on the your profile page to receive this cool decal designed by the CM team!

Q&A with War Thunder Game Director, Viacheslav Bulannikov
We’ve not done a Q&A for a while, so I asked our game director some questions. Here are 13 questions mainly focused on the game going forward into 2025, I hope you find the answers interesting and valuable. Special thanks to Viascheslav for his time!

Q: Abandoned Factory has recently received beautiful new visuals. Are there any plans to give older maps visual updates in the future?
A: Yes, we’re planning to update other locations as well. Not in the December update though, as it’s too soon, but in the first or second update of next year, several updated locations are planned at once.

Q: War Thunder is constantly expanding with new vehicles from other nations, which are implemented into nations already in the game. But are there any plans for separate standalone nations in the future in addition to the 10 already present in the game?
A: Yes, we have plans for separate new nations. But next year, we’ll focus on filling the gaps in existing trees, including adding subtrees of other nations to them, and adding new types of vehicles.

Q: It has been a while since there was any information surrounding World War Mode. What are the plans for this mode? Will it come back in some capacity?
A: We’re developing a new World War mode. I hope we can tell you more about it in early 2025.

Q: With the addition of the F-117, being a very cool but “novelty” aircraft, will we see more additions like these, such as interesting vehicles that wouldn’t fit too well into the meta?
A: Obviously, these types of aircraft that are “not very well fitting into the meta” cannot be a regular addition to the game, since we try to please as many players as possible with updates. But these types of vehicles will appear from time to time. Including some interesting things that are already in the plans for 2025.

Q: AI Ticket bleed is detrimental to Air RB as the game can end without direct player input (and some AI aircraft are more effective than others). Could the impact of AI aircraft be capped to a certain amount of tickets? That way players would have to actively end the game themselves.
A: A5: We monitor the average time of game sessions in different locations, and if it stands out in one direction, we adjust the logic in the mission. However, in our experience, very few game sessions in ARB end with the destruction of ground vehicles, and after adding the logic of AI attack aircraft, the average time of missions in which this logic was added increased, not decreased, since players began to spend time hunting for such AI targets. However, we do not exclude the possibility of bugs with asymmetric ticket bleed due to AI actions, so if you have specific examples of such problems, we’d be grateful for a completed report here.

Q: The Roadmap is an excellent way to see what is planned to come. Are there any plans for a 2025 Roadmap?
A: We used to gather previous Roadmaps when the general plan for changing the game dedicated to one goal was very long and consisted of many steps, and we wanted everyone to see the general goal and progress towards it. And now, there are many changes in the works aimed at improving the game in different directions, on different fronts, both improving stability, and first of all, updating the game graphics, and of course work on improving the game based on your reports and feedback. We plan to regularly cover the progress of development and report on our plans for implementing certain features and adding vehicles, and in the future we may return to the previous Roadmap format.

As for the current Roadmap, we plan to complete most of the remaining parts before the second major update in 2025.

Q: In Ground Realistic Battles, top attack aircraft are capable of dominating ground vehicles for the most part. Are there any plans to do something about this in 2025?
A: According to our data, the balance at the top ranks of ground battles is noticeably shifted towards aviation and helicopters, and this balance has become even worse with the introduction of top aircraft this year. The situation where aircraft can attack tanks from a safe distance with impunity makes gameplay more boring for aviation and less fair for ground vehicles, a similar situation is with helicopters equipped with long-range fast ATGMs, or “fire-and-forget” ATGMs.

To counter these types of threats, more powerful systems are needed that have the ability to fire at several targets at once and a wide search sector in both azimuth and elevation. The most advanced SAM system currently presented in the game only partially meets these requirements, so we’ll move towards heavier systems for all nations, including those components of which are located on several chassis. Of course, we’ll have to solve the problem of controlling these types of SAM systems, but we’re already having thoughts on the matter.

In turn, there are plans to add new capabilities for aircraft. And while we do not consider anti-radiation missiles (ARM) a priority and necessity, more advanced capabilities of ESM from on board an aircraft, i.e. more accurate determination of the active radar position, are in our fairly close plans.

Q: Are there any plans to implement naval for China, Sweden and Israel in 2025?
A: No, in 2025 we plan to focus on the logical completion of Bluewater fleet trees by adding the most famous and powerful battleships. In parallel, we’ll work on the implementation of other types of ships and weapons that are not yet presented in War Thunder.

Q: Bluewater fleet trees are mostly seeing the addition of pre-WWI, WWI and WWII ships. Will we eventually see Cold War or modern ships in 2025?
A: The game already has ships from the Cold War era, but more modern weapons such as long-range anti-ship missiles and all their accompanying mechanics look like a rather difficult challenge to implement in a real-time online PvP game. So at the moment, we can’t yet give exact forecasts or even guarantees that something like this will appear in War Thunder.

Q: Submarines were tested some years ago. Are there any plans to add playable Submarines to naval battles, or in some form to the game?
A: Yes, we have plans for playable submarines, but no further details on this yet.

Q: Is Frame Generation planned to come to the game? For many this would boost game performance, especially when using Ray Tracing.
A: We’re still at the prototyping stage, but this technology is in our plans.

Q: To be specific about improvements coming, with more graphics and effects being updated in Firebirds, and more planned, specifically what will be updated in this regard?
A: We have several areas in which we’re working on graphics. Firstly, these are improvements to RT and the implementation of RT on all platforms available for this technology next year. Secondly, everything that concerns the effects of interaction with water — explosions, movement in water as well as the water itself. We also have plans for further visual improvements to the effect of a fatal explosion of ground vehicle ammunition. But this is only part of the planned improvements and refinements.

Q: APCR is generally seen as a weak round, making it almost always redundant when another round is available. Do you have plans to make this shell more functional to give it a stronger place in the game, either with more reliable damage or angled performance? The round often doesn’t feel fun to use.
A: We increased the damage of APCR shells several years ago, practically equalizing it with identical APDS shells in energy. The poor performance of APCR against sloped and spaced armor is their design flaw due to the lack of a jacket and armor-piercing damper in the hard-alloy core. APCR overall is more of a specialized shell for defeating heavily armored tanks without sloped armor in situations where it’s more difficult to use a more versatile shell.



Next Event Vehicles We’re nearing the end of 2024 now, which means there’s one more vehicle event coming! This time for the winter event, we’ll have four vehicles instead of the three mentioned at the beginning of this year — one tank, two aircraft and one ship. Please keep an eye on the news for what’s to come.

2025 Plans In the near future, we’re going to be revealing some information about our plans for upcoming vehicles in 2025, this will primarily be about top tier SAMs for all nations. We’ll be working with the devs to produce an article with information on this, so keep an eye out for it in the future.

The Next Major As usual, we’ll have a major this month. The devs are working on some cool vehicles that we hope you’ll enjoy. Keep an eye out for the start of the dev blogs and watch out for extreme weather!

Closing Words The entire War Thunder team would like to extend our thanks to every one of you for playing the game, leaving feedback and reporting bugs to us. We aim to keep up this article series going into 2025 to ensure you’re kept up to date with information from the dev team themselves. Have fun, enjoy the upcoming festive season and see you in 2025!