More on new skills contained in 0.7.2 patch

For upcoming 0.7.2 patch, WG is planning to introduce 22 new skills, skills that will be dived in two groups. One group will contain skills, that will start working from 1% and will gradually increase until it reaches 100% when it will be at it highest efectiveness level; and perks, these will only be effective when it will reach 100% training.


Commander

Jack-of-all-trades - Skill

Commander has learned all specializations and can replace knocked out members of his crew. This works only for the base specialization. Effectiveness of the skill is proportional to the number of wounded crew members.

Tutor - Skill

All crew members besides the commander gain additional battle experience, based on the level of this skill.

Eagle Eye - Skill

Maximum view range is increased with the training of this skill. If the observation devices are damaged, skill effectiveness is increased.

Premonition - Perk
In the interface a special visibility indicator will allow a commander to check whether or not the vehicle has been spotted.

Expert - Perk
When aiming at a vehicle, a list of all its damage will be shown.




Driver

Ace - Skill
Improves the traverse speed of the tank.

Off Road Master - Skill
Reduces the ground resistance for terrain currently being traversed. This increases the mobility of vehicle on such soils and reduces the time necessary to speed up to the maximum.

Cruise Master - Skill
Decreases gun dispersion caused by vehicle movement. Does not include rotation of vehicle.

Ramming Master - Skill
Increases the damage done by ramming enemy vehicles and decreases damage done to player’s vehicle. This bonus is not in effect when ramming vehicles from the same team and immobile vehicles

Neatnik - Perk
The engine no longer leaks oil or gasoline, and the chance of fire is reduced.




Gunner

Master Gunsmith - Skill
Reduces the dispersion of a damaged gun. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Sharp-shooter - Perk
Improves chance to critically damage modules and crew members with a shot. The bonus does not affect critical damage by HE rounds. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained

Steady Hands - Skill
Reduces dispersion caused by turret rotation. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Nemesis - Perk
Increases the duration in which an enemy vehicle is detected in a small sector in front of the gun. Only the highest trained level of this perk will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the perk trained.



Loader

"Non impact" ammo rack - Perk
Increases ammo rack durability, because ammo is placed in an accurate way and has no direct contact between shells. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Hunch - Perk
When reloading a shell of a different type, there is a chance the shell will be instantly loaded. Instant loading cannot occur more than once before a full reload cycle has completed. If multiple crewmen have this perk trained, the effectiveness will be summed. Only the highest trained level of this perk will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the perk trained.

Do-or-Die - Perk
Improves reload time for vehicles that are very low on health. Only the highest trained level of this perk will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the perk trained.



Radio operator

Boffin - Skill
Increases radio signal range. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Sonar - Skill
Increases view range. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Retransmitter - Skill
Improves the radio signal range of all friendly tanks that are within your signal range radius. Only the highest trained level of this skill will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the skill trained.

Last Ditch Attempt - Perk
When your vehicle is destroyed, but the radio operator is not killed, he continues to transmit the coordinates of enemy vehicles for a short time. Only the highest trained level of this perk will be in effect if multiple crewmen have the perk trained.


All crewmen

Brothers-in-arms - Perk

If all crew members have this perk, they receive a bonus to all of their skills. Perk does not work, if any member of the crew is knocked out.





Training of crew members:
The training of these skills will be done through a new user interface element that will allow you to place skills in a training queue. This will result in immediate training of a new skill, once your current skill reaches 100%, leaving no risk of wasted battle experience.

There is a number of skills a specific crewman can have – limited only by the number of skills existing in the game. However, additional skills beyond the first will take two times longer to train than the previous skill.

Additionally, if you have not chosen skills for training, any experience gained by your crew will be stored in a separate experience pool and distributed automatically once you select skills you would like to advance.

Training for additional specialties and perks cannot be accelerated by any in-game currency.


Respec of crew members:
When version 7.2 is released, you will receive the option of a “soft reset” at no additional charge. You will be able to reset the chosen skills for each crewman currently assigned to tanks or in your barracks.

The experience you had gained to that point will be stored into a separate pool and will be redistributed to new skills as you assign them. For example, if your crewman currently has 100% skill in Repair and 100% skill in Camouflage, you will have the experience from both of those skills stored – able to be distributed to the skills of your liking.

We will also be introducing a new experience redistribution feature for your tank crew that works similarly to retraining a crewman.

Gold reset – Returns full skill experience earned to the crewman’s experience pool, removing progress in current skills.
Credit reset – Returns 90% of experience earned to the crewman’s experience pool, removing progress in current skills.
Free reset – Returns 80% of experience earned to the crewman’s experience pool, removing progress in current skills.

Source

Errata: original loader's hunch perk info was incorrect, according to Overlord's post #4145 on EU Q&A thread.

WoT US Q&A session

Recenty, WoT US portal posted an Q&A session. I'll reproduce some of the more interesting responses below.


Q: Are you guys planning to include Asian maps in the near future?

A: Yes, we are currently on the middle phase of the development in this cycle. We plan to add them after the American maps and a few others. The last stage of the cycle will include Asian maps.



Q: JT 88 premium tank destroyer~ when is it coming?

A: This premium vehicle is currently scheduled for version 7.3, but this is pending testing.



Q: I would like to know more detail on that "client locking" for the "power users" gamebase that rely on mods to play. Was 7.2 delayed to release this patch instead?

A: 7.2 is a very large content update. 7.1.1 is a maintenance update. 7.2 was only delayed because all the content was not quite ready and internally tested. We did not want to drop features that had already been announced so a delay was needed. 7.1.1 is just a maintenance update but it does include some features that lay the groundwork for the future and provides some immediate benefit.

• Mods will be able to be added in a separate folder. No more writing over the base files. You will now just be able to erase a file in this folder without affecting the main game.
• The new file format will DECREASE load times, not only for maps but models as well. This is very important to note as some sighting issues that players experience in the game are due to a model not being rendered on your screen fast enough.
• This patch lays the foundation for new rendering effects. You may have seen the Wargaming news block with Himmelsdorf being played at night and the cool lighting features that were shown. This patch formats the files in a way that will make this efficient enough in the future to add these additional cool features.

Q: After some encouraging reply and a poll made by Jinxx71 which showed an overwhelming number of players wanted the MM tier spread to be reduced, what is going to be done about the MM?

A: As far as I understand, a client patch is not needed for an adjustment to be made to the MM, it is purely server side. We were encouraged by the promises; we now want to see the actions. Please forgive our impatience, but the MM issue has existed ever since the game was released to the public and so far, almost nothing serious has been done to alleviate the problem.

The Match maker is a complicated issue that is being addressed.  Players would like to see both more even battles, (less 15-0), balanced artillery with a maximum number in a game, scouts being available in only those battles that artillery are present, platoon balance, not constantly being put in the lowest tiers in a battle, and the spread of the tiers. This all needs to be done without taking a long time to find you a match.

While complicated, the first version of this new Match Maker should be available around the 7.2 timeframe. It will take into account many of the above listed issues that players have brought up. The one thing that will be absent is a hard 3 tier spread.

The Match Maker does not use tiers as a determination, but instead assigns “weights” to each vehicle or vehicle type. It will try to create fun and balanced matches with vehicles that are available at the time. It will no longer immediately assign you to the first available battle you are qualified for, but rather hold your tank and make it available to several matches that are gathering players. This will add the flexibility of generating better matches.

You may still see some matches with wide tier spreads; however you may also see more matches with lower tier spreads, including some that may only contain one tier. Much of this will depend on server population and the population distribution at the time you enter the queue. The matchmaker will have a better chance to deal with lower populations as it will take a little time to find better matches. If the population is so low, or badly distributed that it can’t find a “perfect” match it will also have the ability to launch with less than 15 players on a side, if it feels it offers a fair match and waiting additional time may not allow for finding the needed players to fill the rosters.

So overall this change to the matchmaker is a large step towards filling the community’s desires. It is also something that can be continued to be improved and balanced.



Q: Can we have someone assigned to vet the information about game mechanics in the documentation and to make sure the players get informed when changes are made?

There have been several instances lately where the published documentation has been absolutely wrong about how the mechanics work, and the incorrect information has been left in place for extended periods of time because no one made sure the changes got published.

It's kinda nice to know the rules of the game, ya know?

A: We will release these as time allows. The first one will be probably be about the HE damage.



Q: What about the undistributed experience of KV-3 when it moves to Tier7? I want to save some for KV-4.

A: This is still being discussed; most likely, the XP will remain on KV-3

New tank crewman skills - 0.7.2 preview

Original from Goha.RU forums.
All credits for translation goes to Kruzenshtern from WoT US forums.

gunner

• Master Gunner - if the gun is damaged, each 10% of this skill reduces the size of the aiming circle by 2%.
• Sniper - +1% to the likelihood of causing critical damage to enemy tank modules and crew.
• Careful Aiming [literally - Soft Turret Turning] - each 10% of this skill reduces the size of the aiming circle while turning the turret by 0.5%.
• Carries a Grudge - any enemy tank spotted within a cone +/-8 degrees from the axis of the gun remains visible for 2 seconds longer than normal. The skill only activates when it is at 100%. There will no stacking bonuses for two gunners having this skill.
• Forest Hunter - +1 meter to the maximum distance [text cut off] obstacles [I think this means that bushes conceal you at longer distances than normal.]

loader

• Camouflage ... well, you know.
• Battle Brotherhood - +3% to skill level of all crew members. [This is the only shared skill at this point.]
• Contactless Ammo Rack - +12.5% to ammo rack HP. Skill starts working at 100%. Two or more loaders with this skill do not stack.
• Desperado - +10% to reload speeds when tank HP is under 10%.
• Intuition - when changing shell types, there is a 10% probability that the gun will already be loaded with the right round. [There needs to be more explanation of this, but the tooltip isn't shown in the screen.]

commander

• Teacher - for each 10% of this skill, all crew members other than the commander earn +1% XP in combat.
• Eagle Eye - each 10% increases vision distance by 0.2% if optics are undamaged or by 2% if the optics are damaged.
• Sixth Sense - the commander can tell if the enemy has spotted his tank.
• Expert - the commander can spot critical damage to tanks within +/-15 degrees of the axis of the gun.
• Jack of All Trades - the commander replaces knocked-out crew members with 50% effectiveness. [Tooltip - 1 crew member gone - 50%; 2 crew members - 25%; etc.]

Key points made in the text:

• When the new skills are introduced, all current skills will be reset (so players will be able to reallocate XP). [We knew this, but worth mentioning again.]
• Radio operator will have a skill called "Last Gasp", transmitting enemy positions for a few seconds after the tank is killed.
• Loader skill "Carries a Spare" (+1 shell over maximum complement) was removed. [Probably for balance reasons.]
• Most skills are "position-specific" - gunner, loader, etc. Battle Brotherhood is the only new "common skill" (I'm guessing Repair/etc. stay as common skills too).
• If you have the same skill on two crewmen with the same job (two loaders, two radio operators, etc.), typically there is no stacking - the game takes the maximum skill level between the two.

Chat banned

Today I got a chat ban for 48 hours for calling some imbecile E-50 player an "idiot" for spending 10 minutes playing pick-a-boo with an E-100 who had only ~400+ HP left, evidently the "idiot" got himself killed.

Did I deserved it? maybe .. but that's not the issue.
The issue is that WG chat banned me from all channels including private ones and own clan channel, thus hindering the clan ability to communicate with me and me with  them.
The "crime" was committed on the public in-game chat channel and I don't understand why I'm also banned from non-public channels.

I've sent a ticket to the game support regarding this issue, but so far no answer.

Reply from support:

Dear Player,
Thank you for contacting your world of tanks customer support team. As you are aware, your account currently has a chat ban restriction applied to it. This restriction applies to all forms of in-game chat. To avoid this issue from reoccurring please try and refrain from using bad language in all future forms of in-game communication.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.

Best regards,Michael Johnson
World of Tanks Support Service

...

Dear Player,
Thank you for your question.
The form of chat restriction is in complete accordance with our policies. The reasoning for such restriction is internal information and should not be publicly displayed. However, we would like to notice that that certain players will become more and more persistent in violating game rules unless our team is equally persistent in suppressing such violations. Also, we would like to notice that continuous chat rules violation may lead not only to temporary chat suspension but also to the game account ban.

Best regards,
Serj Tankos

That's a load of bullshit! Also, the reasoning is "internal information" .. what the hell?! are they on drugs for so long their brains turned into swiss cheese?

0.7.1.1 RU public test patch

Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/news/826-common_test_7-1_1/ (russian portal)

1. This small update is implemented is extremely important mechanism for packaging the game files, which is designed to optimize the loading of game maps and some other aspects of the game - it is a positive impact on the speed game.

2. Drastically change and work with game modifiers (modes) - they will be stored in a separate folder (in this update at: <papka_c_klientom> \ res_mods \ 0.7.1.1) for ease of use, replacement or removal.

Existing modes, at the time of renewal, will be erased from the folder with the game.

With each new client updates will appear the same name folder, so you can manually move the fashion of the already irrelevant to the new folder.

Read the instructions for installing mods in a special section of the forum.

Basically, all mods will be working from ..\res_mods\.. sub-folder

0.7.2 patch preview trailer

0.7.2 will introduce the two new maps, 2nd US TD line and the replacements for current T34 and T30 US heavy tanks.