War Thunder News

Based on the feedback from the YouTube community and from content creators, as well as after analyzing the occupancy of players in sessions of specific ranks, we have decided to make changes to how the matchmaking works and will implement them in the near future (without additional announcements).

Additional settings will be added to ground RB in sessions of BR 9.3 and above that will make battles of top ranked vehicles more intense but will slightly increase the average waiting time of finding a battle. When a player selects a session and joins the queue, the matchmaking system takes many factors into account. Now the number of players in battles on large maps will on average become larger than before, although waiting times might somewhat increase. We’re also looking into an option to change matchmaking settings depending on the number of users in the game; this will possibly let us achieve a more comfortable waiting time for the battle to start, as well as improve matching quality, leading to more players joining battles.

Similar changes have already been made in air RB in March this year. We hope you will appreciate this improvement in ground RB as well, and after the implementation of these changes we will continue to monitor matchmaking closely and will make necessary adjustments in real time if necessary.

SURVEY

The Freccia VBM is an Italian IFV with a rapid fire cannon and fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles Spike-MR. Meet the new top tier in ground battles in the upcoming La Royale update.

[h2]Freccia VBM, light tank, Italy, rank VII[/h2]

Features:

• 8 Spike-MR fire-and-forget missiles
  
• Good mobility
  
• Target tracking
  

The Italian Freccia VBM wheeled fighting vehicle will join the top-tiers in ground battles as the first to the game carrier of the Spike fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missiles!

The Freccia VBM is reminiscent of two other high-tier vehicles from the Italian tech tree: from the Centauro tank destroyer, the vehicle received a wheeled chassis with a maximum speed of about 108 km/h; and the turret is a modified version of the Dardo IFV with the already familiar fast-firing 25mm Oerlikon cannon.



The main difference of the new Freccia VBM is the Spike-MR guided missiles with a tandem warhead and own homing heads. The gunner has to simply lock on the enemy vehicle and push the fire button: a smart missile will find the target itself, even when fired into the sky at a high angle. A tandem warhead is able to overcome the protection of, in general, any tank in the game, while the automatic target tracking makes it possible to fire at moving targets. The missile has an electro-optical infrared seeker and focuses on the brightest thermal signature in the lock-on area, so hiding from the Spike behind the ESS doesn’t work. Conventional smoke grenades, however, allow to safely leave the line of fire.



The research and mastering of the Freccia VBM is very comfortable. The vehicle receives ATGM immediately after purchase, already at the first research tier the commander has access to the armor-piercing belt of the M791 APDS rounds, which work perfectly against light vehicles and helicopters, so you can safely focus on improving mobility of the vehicle. At higher tiers of research, APFSDS belt is also unlocked with the best indicators of armor penetration at angles.



Like all light vehicles, the Freccia VBM relies on speed far more than protection. Despite the fact that the engine and the crew are concentrated in the front of the vehicle, the rear troop compartment should not be exposed to enemy fire, since the anti-tank missile ammo is stored there.

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder in the website special section.

Please note that we are currently in the middle of testing the next major update La Royale. It will last until June 1st, 7:00 GMT. Learn more about participating on it on our forums.

[h3]

Please feel free to leave your feedback on these changes in the dedicated "It’s fixed! №76" thread

[/h3]

[h2]Naval Hit Camera[/h2]

We intended to release this improvement in the La Royale major update, but decided to hurry up with it to make your naval battles more comfortable ASAP. Now when you damage an enemy, the hit camera will display a dynamic water line, showing the depth, trim, and heel of the opposing ship. And then you’ll make your next volley based on that information. Knowledge is power!

[h2]Incognito Mode[/h2]

We added an option to hide the players’ nicknames that will likely prove useful to the streamers and vloggers. The necessity for such an option arose due to the game’s cross-platform multiplayer that allows people with Gaijin.Net accounts to participate in the same battles with Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live users. Our partner platforms have their own rules regarding what’s acceptable in nicknames, and sometimes the players’ nicknames contain words that streaming services might have an issue with.

Now if you choose to replace other players’ nicknames with numerical UserIDs or automatically generated names, such an issue won’t even be a possibility. You can do that by going into the “Main Parameters” menu and then “Privacy and Confidentiality”.

Note that this renames the players only for you: our moderators and GMs will be able to find violators of the rules even with their nicknames changed.

[h2]Hold Your Fire[/h2]

We disabled automatic fire for the main calibre guns of blue water ships. This decision was made for two reasons.

First, the automatic behaviour of the main calibre sometimes got in the way of players who switched temporarily to another weaponry group: after they returned to the main calibre, they were disappointed to see that it was turned in a direction they didn’t expect. WIth AI disabled, the main calibre should always point in the same direction as you left it.

Second, some unscrupulous players used the AI to take over the main calibre permanently, effectively putting the ship on autopilot while they were idling on the secondary calibre. That was unsportsmanlike, and unfair to the players who actively participated in the naval battles.



You’ll find the full list of improvements in the separate changelogs that we have released during the past couple of weeks — there are many interesting things there. Animation of depth bomb replenishment should now work correctly, the errors that prevented players from choosing countermeasures on aircrafts were fixed, as well as several button conflicts on gamepads, and finally, battle tasks will now be displayed in the correct order: from easy to special ones.

Once again, many thanks for all your bug reports that you submitted using our special service.





[h2]Ground Vehicles[/h2]

• Incorrect animation of the scout UAV reloading in RB mode has been fixed.
  
• Incorrect displaying of the visual model of fired shells in replays has been fixed.
  
• Absence of animation of the digging icon when raising/lowering the blade in online battles has been fixed.
  

[h2]Naval[/h2]

• Automatic firing of the AI-controlled main calibre turrets on blue water ships has been disabled. When switching to the second and third cannon group the main cannons remain aimed wherever the player was aiming when changing.
  
• A bug in replays that caused shots from blue water ships to be displayed with a delay has been fixed (report).
  
• Missing depth bomb replenishment animation has been fixed.
  
• HMS Enterprise — A bug that caused the actual amount of ammunition of the main calibre turret to be less than the player selected before battle has been fixed. The ammunition of the 152 mm single-shot cannons have been increased to 240 shots.
  
• Gun Vertical guidance speed for the 36 cm/45 Type 41 cannon has been increased to 8 degrees per second.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Display of the required level for the Battle Pass has been added to the description of the challenges.
  
• A bug where when editing selected suspended weaponry when adding/removing a Flares/Chaff block in the modification window, the availability of the choice of Flares/Chaff wasn’t updated has been fixed.
  
• A bug where the progress of the selected achievement relative to the previously selected mark wasn’t displayed in a battle has been fixed.
  
• A bug where battle tasks for RB were displayed in battle in the “Personal Tasks” window in SB mode has been fixed.
  
• The battle task window no longer shows medium battle tasks until the reward for the easier one has been taken. Medium battle tasks can not be performed without getting reward for an easy task.
  

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• A bug where there were no armoured vehicles in the hangar on the special transportation trailer has been fixed.
  

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

WWII era experimental light tank Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. featuring perfect mobility comes to the game in the La Royale update.

[h2]Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A., light tank, Germany, rank II[/h2]

Features:

• High mobility
  
• 37mm gun
  
• High-density internal compartment
  

The long-awaited replenishment of the WWII tank line-up! Meet the German experimental light tank Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A., which will appear in the game with the release of the major La Royale update. The fastest representative of the Pz.Kpfw.38 series!

Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. was created according to the program of the new (n.A. - neue Art, “new type”) reconnaissance tank of the Wehrmacht. One of the conditions of the program was the requirement for the speed of the scout, at least 50-60 km/h. The tank created by BMM surpassed the army requirement - the new engine and improved chassis allowed the ank to speed up to 67 km/h.



The modified turret houses the 37 mm KwK 38(t) gun, which is already familiar to tankers from previous modifications of Czechoslovak tanks. In addition to armor-piercing shells, the gun can also fire sub-caliber shells, which will allow the tank to penetrate all light and most medium tanks at its rank, but its power is no longer enough for heavy tanks.

Thanks to its good dynamics and low profile, the tank is perfect for capturing points and scouting. Unfortunately, at rank II, one can no longer hope for armor. All tank guns here easily pierce the little Czech. The layout inside the fighting compartment is very dense, so an enemy projectile has a high chance of hitting several crew members and important modules at once.



The nice little Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. along with dozens of combat vehicles from other playable nations will be waiting for you in the big La Royale update. The patch is coming really soon!

Friends!

Ten days ago we asked you to share your key suggestions and complaints about the game in a special survey. As a result, we received 14,562 player submitted entries - many of them being very constructive. It is a very impressive number! Some submissions made a few pages of well organised bullet points. We are very grateful for such active support for the project and a desire to help us make War Thunder better!

It is very difficult to process such a great amount of information. But we managed to isolate most of the repeating points and are already working hard on them.

[h3]Economy and progression[/h3]


More than 90% of feedback entries touched issues with economy and progression. The majority of them were: repair costs and the ability to pay for it by being active in battles and performing specific actions. Including rewards for assisting enemy kills, kill-to-death ratio, point capturing in a team, repair and other help to teammates plus many others. A separate layer of concern was expressed about the time needed by new players to progress all the way up to the top-tiers.

About one third of players are concerned with the current BR distribution and methods of assigning BR to a vehicle. As well as about the BR ranges of vehicles in battle.

At least 4% of players also paid special attention to such topics as the need to purchase modules, the possibility to have free - perhaps lengthy but free - repairs, and many suggestions in not modifying or significantly rebalancing premium vehicles.

All in all, we understand these concerns and will try to encompass ideas on most of them in the upcoming economy roadmap we promised to publish by June 14th.

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]


About 10% of players also took time to share their ideas and observations about various gameplay issues in War Thunder. We are still assembling the full picture of those thousands of points, but have already focused in some of the most repeated ones:

Locations. Especially their size and how susceptible they are to being shot-through in Ground battles. It is a very important topic. We have tried to study our maps over a long time, creating special tools like ‘heatmaps’ of deadly shots together with the player system of likes and bans. With the game growing and many new vehicles added many maps demonstrated either new issues, or older ones became too significant.

We are already engaged in reviewing and ‘polishing’ all locations - and it is sure to be part of the upcoming game improvements.

Many of you spoke about the inconvenience of night battles. Though we already tried to make some improvements there - like lowering their appearance probability, addition of illuminating shells,- it turned out not to be enough. We will also look into new solutions here.

Some other given complaints were about aviation streaks in Arcade Ground battles, ideas how to improve voting mechanics for favourite maps, and ways to improve the survivability of stock vehicles both in ground and air battles.

The was a separate pool of ideas related to PvE modes and ways to improve their gameplay and attraction.

Naturally we received literally thousands of ideas on specific vehicle models, modules, weapons and features. It is impossible even to list them all here. Which is actually good - since War Thunder is a game about military vehicles, so it is expected they are in the focus. We are carefully studying all feedback and will try to look at it from a fresh point of view.

As mentioned, we are still in the process of analysing all of the survey entries and picking up more and more points from these worth examining and doing some extra to work on them. Currently the survey form is closed, but we will continue to make similar general broad feedback polls on the game in the future again. We will also continue to actively listen to your feedback on the forums. Our plan is to conduct such intensive ‘general questions and suggestions’ sessions at least once every 3 months.



Some of your suggestions can be put in the game quite quickly - and War Thunder game design and development teams are already working on them. Some will require a more complex approach, and we will plan for them in our roadmap. We will also cover more about these in the news for the game. So since we are planning to release a large economy and progression changes roadmap by June the 14th, we hope to meet many of your wishes on the above mentioned issues there.

By the way, we have just published a detailed Q&A for video content creators, you might find the answers interesting and relevant to some of your points in them (link).

[h3]Conclusion[/h3]

Once again, thank you for taking the time and effort to share your thoughts! We have always tried to pay attention to your feedback, but getting such a massive pool of information from players all over the world - is a limitless source of inspiration and motivation for us. Do not be upset if you don’t find your exact points in the summary above - it comprises the most repetitive ideas, but we do and are studying them all. We will work diligently to look at issues from various viewpoints and try to improve as much as possible to allow you to continue to enjoy War Thunder for many years to come.