[2023] Dev Team response to questions from the YouTube community and content creators

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Content creators addressed us with their questions and feedback - we read and answer!
Hi all! Lately we have received a huge amount of feedback from players and have been hard at work analyzing, processing and preparing to answer your questions. The most heated discussion came from questions on the economy, and we will definitely answer these too once we’ve had time to look through them all! In addition to dozens of thousands of feedback messages from players, we received a long list of questions from our War Thunder content creators from YouTube, Twitch and other platforms. While we are still analyzing requests and suggestions from players, today we’ll answer some questions from our creators, maybe you’ll find answers to your questions here too. Let’s go!

Vehicles

Q: We are concerned about the comparatively low efficiency of the post-penetration effect of low-caliber HEAT rounds, for example on such vehicles as Ru 251, AUBL 74, leKPz M41, AML-90, PT-76, T92, etc.
A: We’re planning to rework certain aspects of shaped-charge jets for lower caliber rounds. These rounds do have a very narrow post-penetration jet, and there are lots of real world examples of instances where lightly armored vehicles remained mobile and even in fighting condition after taking a hit from HEAT. Because of this we don’t plan on making these particular munitions overly powerful, but in regards to destroying modules and incapacitating crew in the path of the jet we are planning some changes that will make their damage more consistent.

Q: Light vehicles might be very die-hard, being able to absorb 3-4 rounds, because fuses are unable to arm.
A: This is a big topic for players and a common talking point inside our team as well. There are several possibilities we’re considering but they will take some time to develop. We're keenly aware of this issue though and will introduce a solution if and when we can.

Q: Is it possible to make 3D decorations physical so that they can detach from vehicles when hit?
A: Great idea! We’ll look into how complicated this would be to implement, and if it is indeed possible we’ll aim to make them destructible and prone to catching fire as well.

Q: Is it possible to refine the reloading mechanics, when the loader is knocked out during a gun misfire, then the reload cycle starts again?
A: Absolutely, it’s a good point to bring up, especially for vehicles with a very long load time. We have a solution in mind for this one - we can try to save the reload progress after a certain percentage of the reload cycle is reached, say 80% for example. At this stage the round is already in the breach so there’ll be no need to start the entire process over. Also for two-part ammunition, the loading process could be split into two stages, so the cycle won’t reset to the start if one part of the projectile has been prepared and the loader gets knocked out.

Q: Do you plan to increase the mobility of heavy tanks and slow SPGs in the RB mode, like it is in the Arcade?
A: No this one isn’t in our plans. RB is where vehicles should behave as authentically as possible, low mobility is just a real-world drawback these kinds of vehicles have.

Q: Do you like the idea of giving free back-ups when purchasing top-tier Premium vehicles?
A: We do! We’ll consider including an initial amount of free backups with high tier premiums in the future to incentivise players to stay in battle.

Q: There are still turret desync bugs.
A: It’s a complicated issue to solve but an important one, we’re currently working on a fix.

Q: Is it possible to get rid of the desync of server and client?
A: Unfortunately in any network model, including ours, desynchronization between the server and client is sadly inevitable. This is a con for sure. The pro however is that these desyncs usually do not affect the gameplay for all players which is important. The War Thunder networking model (State Sync) was chosen to be the most cheater-proof (in contrast to lag-compensation models like in CS), and, more importantly, it allows us to implement relatively realistic physical interactions. The shortcoming of our model is that there is the possibility of minor (and more rarely major) desyncs, as all clients see the ‘possible present’ of other players, instead of recordings of the past. The lower a player’s ping, the less often desyncs happen, but they will still happen anyway.

Q: Any chance to fix the bugged spotting, when vehicles are invisible for no reason?
A: This issue comes from the server’s anti-cheat algorithms. We do our best to sync them with the game render, but in a dynamic environment with huge open spaces and various client pings, it’s unfortunately impossible to maintain perfect synchronization.

Q: Damage by excessive pressure needs more calibration, and also damage of high caliber shells of ground vehicles needs to be increased.
A: For improvements like these we need some more precise examples as there’s a lot of factors involved here, often issues in this area are not reliably reproducible, so we’d appreciate any replays or recordings of issues you’ve found so we can investigate them more effectively. It’s easiest to do this in the hangar.

Q: Please fix the bug that doesn’t allow you to turn over the tank if it’s turned upside down and lies on top of the turret.
A: Ah yes, it's very rare but annoying when it occurs, we’ll look into a fix.

Q: Do you have plans to create a tutorial on mechanics of top tier vehicles, such as anti-aircraft missile systems, drones, etc - with an option to customize controls for such mechanics?
A: Yes we do! We’re planning various tutorial elements for our more modern systems.

Q: Due to the difference in the vehicle generations, there are big problems on Rank V, particularly on BR 7.0-8.0, where there are tanks with APFSDS and stabilizers and without them.
A: Indeed, the technology jump in this BR range is problematically abrupt, we’ll pay special attention to this area in particular and come up with some solutions.

Q: The Killer-Hunter feature is toxic and requires a 2-3 sec delay to make it possible for the commander to take over or react somehow.
A: A delay here would make sense, we’ll consider this.

Q: Currently graphics can noticeably influence player skill: for example, an enemy tank can be almost invisible in deep shadow until it fires. Locations are full of decorative elements that overload players’ attention. Is it possible to brighten up the shadows and lose some greenery and decorations on the locations?
A: It’s a tough question that requires more complex solutions and precise fixes rather than a sort of ‘global update’ to the graphics. The thing is, we can’t just make a game where pro players have their own minimalistic graphics mode, while more casual players have a different one (since that’s just not fair). Dumbing down the game graphically so it’s purely structured around competitive gaming also isn’t an option - our game has and always will be oriented towards a wide spectrum of players with different tastes and preferences, so on this one we’ll have to look at more specific elements that could be improved.

Q: Upgrading helicopters through PvE is too long and hard, and their stock versions are often almost unplayable in other modes.
A: We’re currently trying to figure out what to do with the mode, we’ll announce our decisions at a later time.

Q: Remove volumetric damage. It makes certain tanks too well-defended, track fenders and side skirts absorb hits.
A: Volumetric damage brings many tanks closer to their correct level of protection (Tigers and Panthers for example), and this can’t be achieved without maintaining our current realistic armor model. However, as with every complex system it’s hard to perfect across the board. We need your reports here - you can send us your replays or record anomalies in the hangar. In all cases where volumetric (and every other damage system) isn’t working correctly, we will fix it - or at least we’ll do our best to. We appreciate that volumetric was a big adjustment to tank battles as it wasn’t present from the start of the game and thus required some adaptation, but we believe this more realistic armor model adds to War Thunder, so we’ll work hard on improving it as much as possible.

Q: Decrease the numbers of all convoy AAA in EC and/or give them less accuracy.
A: We’ve fixed this one - already in production.

Q: For Air sim float plane spawns. Instead of spawning all the way back on the map and taking 25 mins to get to the battle, have it be able to spawn at any AF or spawn on the fleet with your float planes. Suggesting when spawning on any AF of course you spawn in the air, and if you spawn on your fleet have it spawn you on the water next to your carrier.
A: We’ll think about this one, the current system was chosen based on player requests. However there are not many floatplanes and they’re almost universally slow, so it probably won’t negatively impact immersion too much if they spawn in the air closer to the action.

Q: I would like to see if WT naval arcade could be made a bit more arcadey to attract more people to the mode, mainly by making rangefinding faster so it might be more fun to play. Maybe also add what ammo to shoot at which target so people have more of an Idea when to use AP or HE and SAP.
A: We agree here - We’ll try to do something to make the mode more approachable, and will likely start with rangefinding.

Q: The attack drones should be removed, they don't bring anything new to the table (helicopters and planes do the same) except that they are much harder to hit/kill. With that there aren't really counters against them except hightier AAs.
A: We’ve spent a lot of time gathering examples and analyzing feedback regarding drones, we’re going to move them up to a higher BR where they can be more easily countered by advanced AA systems.

Q: Suggestion to stop helicopters (and other aircraft) from firing their weapons after they are considered ‘dead’ by the game, as it’s not enjoyable to die to a player you’ve already beaten.
A: In reality, ‘destroying’ an aircraft (in terms of inflicting damage that makes the aircraft uncontrollable) doesn’t make it harmless. We do like this ‘last chance’ aspect to gameplay (There's a beast deep inside you, it will not die.. It will fight back!) It’s a system that goes both ways, firstly it is realistically possible - and it might make a player's day to get a kill with a doomed aircraft. However we do see the issues it brings, especially with misleading kill messages. We need to do a bit more thinking on this one.

Q: Suggestion to allow phasing through teammates at the start of the match to prevent blocking, in the same way air realistic has after just taking off.
A: We can’t see a way to do this one for ground vehicles - players inevitably will exploit it (when spawning, players will deliberately try to drive through each other to end the cooldown while taking up the same space, which will cause a lot of issues unfortunately).

Other

Q: Add the ability to report racists, homophobes and similar to customer support
Allow me to send a report to customer support with a screenshot of in-game violation and possibly even a copy of the replay file.
A: Good idea, we’ll add an easier way to report such instances. Each in-game report already has a chat log attached. Creating an automatic screenshot or something along those lines though is much harder and can introduce difficulties. We’ll try to show the chat log to the user submitting a report to streamline the process.

Matchmaking

Q: Please add more maps to the top tier Air RB (12.0 BR). Even smaller maps. Some maps are very rare.
A: Currently we have 10 maps at this BR. Certain maps will appear more rarely if players have them banned. We’ll aim to add more maps at this rating. For smaller maps though, players often request less of this for top tier jets (usually words like ‘claustrophobic’ are used).

Q: For me, the big problem is the size of the maps on the Air RB. It happens that prop planes are thrown on a simulation map. Please remove large maps from Air RB on low and medium tiers.
A: Agreed - big maps can become boring sometimes when populated with slower aircraft with a lot of downtime between engagements. When we implement a way of displaying which maps appear at which BRs (see below) we’ll adjust the appearance of large maps at the lower tiers. Regarding smaller maps for top tiers though - see the request above. We’re trying not to add smaller maps to fast jet battles and will try to introduce less instances of this, however currently many players do still ask for them.

Q: I’d like you to increase the chances of going into battle on a vehicle of maximum available for this battle BR. I once performed an experiment and found out that I got into battles using the highest BR vehicles only in 11-14% of cases. Sure, overcoming hardship is valuable, but not that often: it’s demoralizing.
A: Ultimately, the session consists of players within your BR spread who are currently in the queue, there’s no additional factors that directly put you at a certain battle rating. On top of this regarding ‘full uptiers’, only 4 players on each team have the possibility of being at the top BR, so even if you are at a lower BR relatively in a match, you won’t be fighting a team entirely comprised of vehicles more advanced than yours.

Q: Add an unlimited amount of bans/5 bans.
A: The problem with this one is that we already have situations with the current one ban system, where some maps are rarely ever played. Adding additional bans (5 bans for sure) will lead to situations where all available maps are banned from the current queue, meaning matches won’t be able to start at all, or only after significant waiting times.

Q: Add some way to vote for map/map preferences.
A: This is something we want to think about more. We are willing to have some kind of voting system in place, but at the same time it’s important for players to have a variety of maps too, especially as certain vehicles are inevitably more suitable for certain styles of map.

Q: Add BR limitations for each map and show it to players.
A: Good idea - showing the BR range for a map in the map preferences window would be very useful, we’ll try to implement it.

Q: My biggest and worst problem in WT is maps in Ground RB is that I don't want to play small maps in top tier battles (things like Berlin - Finland - Cargo Port - Alaska - Small Fulda - Small Maginot Line... etc).
A: We also don’t like all of the maps at high ranks as well, although players’ opinions differ (Many players like Finland or Berlin at high ranks, but at the same time many also don’t), but as suggested above we’ll introduce a way to show the BR limitations for maps. The enjoyment a map brings is often very subjective, but in instances where a particular map is noticeably widely disliked we will pay it extra attention.

Missions and locations

Q: In Tank RB we often get Battle mode with points already captured, and that demotivates the players from moving. I think this mode should go.
A: These scenarios can foster a more sedentary style of gameplay, we’ll probably reduce the chance of these maps appearing in the rotation, and likely remove some of them.

Q: I’d like the developers to manage the maps in a way so that modern vehicles won’t appear in WWII locations like Berlin.
A: We partially agree on Berlin (and maybe Rhine too) but not generally. We’ll try to remove the most obvious elements from maps that specifically relate to a certain timeframe to make them more universal, and we’ll think about introducing a modern version of Berlin too, that could be interesting.

Q: Do you plan to exclude night missions from rotation in case the player doesn’t have night vision and thermal sight modules, or maybe introduce an option to disable those missions?
A: We have decided to make night battles optionally available, we’ll announce exactly how this will be implemented a bit later.

Q: Collision models of various obstacles, garbage and other things should be either removed, replaced or reworked.
A: We’re working on it! Collision with even small objects can be jarring sometimes in certain circumstances, any examples you have of such issues with screenshots and descriptions will really help us improve this area as quickly as possible.

Q: It would be great to increase the duration of session creation to increase the number of players in battles and make them more intense. I think that waiting for 20 more seconds in the hangar and not ending up in an 8v8 battle on a large map is worth it.
A: We’ll think about this one - Unfortunately there’s no universal solution regarding a bracket of queue time that would apply to every situation, but some additional matchmaking options could improve the situation.

Q: Are there any plans to additionally reward the top 5 players at the end of the battle?
A: We do have plans along these lines for sure, but we’re just not sure if rewarding the top positions is the healthiest way to go: it’s tempting and a good reward, but it creates unhealthy competition for those 5 places (meaning that players may be compelled to grief or get the way of those in the lead).

Q: European Province: The city part is done well because it is separate small location. The open terrain around can be shot through the hills and there is also the possibility of shooting from one spawn to another.
A: Indeed, we’re aware of the problems here. We will aim to fix the instances where it’s possible to engage from spawn to spawn in some of the higher BRs.

Q: Surroundings of Volokolamsk: Very large location with a huge unused space. If your flank is clean then you are either too lazy or don't have enough time to react to the other one. I think it is necessary to leave only a small version of it.
A: It’s certainly a large location with a lot of empty space - we’ve already changed the rotation settings for this map, now it’s only available in ground RB and only from the session rank of 9.7 - also please note, a session rank of 9.7 means that these are battles for vehicles between the ratings of 8.7 - 9.7.

Q: Red Desert: Huge spaces with shots from covers on the top of rocks. Maybe you will remove this location from the rotation?
A: At the moment this map is only available from 9.7 and above so the huge spaces can be crossed relatively quickly by the faster vehicles at this tier, Red Desert is also still in the top 5 most liked locations from our map “like” system. However we will keep an eye on its overall popularity among players.

Q: El Alamein: Positions on the tops of the cliffs make it difficult to play. Line A and line 8.
A: You’re right, we’ll fix them.

Q: Battle of Hürtgen Forest: Now in the rotation we have the larger version where the activity of the players is lower than before. I propose to return the old version with 3 city capture points.
A: We don’t see a decrease in activity in this arrangement, but the capture points really do need to be redone, we’ll improve them.

Q: Mozdok [Battle]: The location is either for the fast tanks which can take up positions at the beginning or about “standing at one point” as the respawn points are located opposite each other and are shot through. There is no goal to capture the point, no goal to leave the position. Can this mission be removed?
A: It’s possible, we will yes. The mobility of the tanks that see this map do make its layout quite unsuitable.

Q: Fields of Poland: the situation here is better than with the “European Province” although the expansion doesn't look justified everywhere.
A: Perhaps we can remove the forests around the edges of the map and replace them with fields to deter players from focusing on the outskirts.

Q: Port Novorossiysk [Domination]: the teams capture their points being fully defended, and then meet up in front of a huge open area that makes them afraid to advance, so they just stick to the corridors. We need a full rework of the central point, with safer passages from both sides. The fact that you can effectively fire from across the river also contributes to the stalemate, making the players stay on line 7 with zero kills.
A: We see your points, but have to disagree on this one - from our data and heatmaps (and also personal experience!), the map has a good intensity of action, it often only takes one or two tanks from either team to funnel in behind enemy lines to break defenses. We’d also highly recommend some smoke shells for this map too if your tank carries them, as the sightlines are quite narrow it’s possible to block one entirely with a single shell, allowing your team time to advance.

Q: Sinai: a great map, but positions on spawn points on A1-A2 get in the way: it’s hard to get to the player who camps there. Would like for those positions to be removed on Sands of Sinai as well.
A: Thank you for bringing this one up, we’ll look into it.

Q: Ardennes: there’s a lot of excess space from А1 to С3, same as in the opposite corner on G8.
A: It may seem like empty space, but we see these routes are often utilized by players.

Q: Poland, Abandoned Factory and Eastern Europe: examples of good maps. I’d like to see a new location in the future update that is similar in size and junction layout to these maps and hear the player feedback.
A: We’ll try to introduce a map along these lines in one of our next updates, probably at the end of the year. We’re actually working on something quite similar to what you’ve described at the moment.

Q: Vietnam: have you considered partially draining the swamp on point A? Many players avoid it since it’s so hard to move around there.
A: Yes this is possible, that’s a good point.

We’d like to thank all of our players and creators who’ve submitted comments and suggestions for the development of the game. In this text we’ve responded to the feedback we managed to sort and take into account, we appreciate everything you’ve sent us - even if it hasn’t directly appeared in this text. We’d also like to remind you that this is only the beginning, and we have a lot of work ahead of us! We plan on continuing to promptly share our upcoming plans with all of you, along with regularly answering your questions.