Friends, honored guest, gamers, World of Tankers, Mr. and Mrs. President and all the ships at sea, Wargaming has announced their long awaited vision of what the game is going to become in 2020, it’s 10th year of operation.

So what do we have to look forward to?

Are they finally going to address the horrid MM?

Will they finally somehow curb the blatant, wanton seal clubbing that runs off any new player that dares try the game?

Are they finally going to address the toxicity and physics abuse by banning offenders?

Will they at along last address arty in a meaningful way?

Will they ever balance the game?

Will they fix the ridiculous levels of RNG that make you Wyatt Earp one game and Daffy Duck the next?

The answer to all of those questions is, sadly, no. I’m not kidding. For the 10th year straight Wargaming has decided to completely ignore all of the core problems that people have complained about for quite literally a decade in favor of what appears to be a complete makeover (read as a way to bilk more money out of what few players they have left) of the game. Let’s look into their recent announcement on where they’re headed and discuss it, shall we?

From the article:

Crew 2.0

The new year brings a fundamental change to the crew concept. Its core hasn’t changed for years, limiting itself merely to some minor updates and features (Crew Skins, Crew Books, etc.). World of Tanks is constantly evolving, so the time has come to rethink our vision of the crew concept.

Next year, we’ll introduce the brand-new Crew 2.0. All crew unit members will have a common progression, so interacting with them will be more convenient than with individual tankers.

We are also completely redesigning the perks system. The number of available perks will increase to 25, and the crew members training system will change too. You will be able to:

• Choose in which direction to develop the commander’s skills.

• Create multiple crew configurations for each vehicle, depending on your gameplay style, which will affect its performance in battle.

Once we introduce Crew 2.0, you can convert the accumulated experience of all existing crew members and direct it to train the new ones. You’ll be able to deploy them in battle instantly, without missing a beat!

It may sound complex now, but we’ll be introducing the revamped crew concept step by step, so it will be easy for everyone to understand and to take advantage of all the new mechanics. Rest assured that you won’t lose any of your progress and hard work! The whole scope of potential changes is still under active development, so stay tuned for more news.

World of Tanks official Site

So, in other words, they’re taking a system they never had working right to begin with and multiplying it into a complete debacle of non-functionality.

This is a company that never quite figured out something as simple as the sixth sense skill. This is a company that never got the spotting system sorted out and made the game more akin to a Star Trek game complete with Romulan Cloaking devices and Klingon Birds of Prey than big, huge, 70 ton tanks with silhouettes the size of small barns.

So they’re answer isn’t to fix what’s wrong, but rather multiply the problem into I don’t even think God knows what at this point. This is sure to end in disaster.

Their next idea which they’re very vague on is Equipment Reworking. From the announcement:

Today, for most tanks, there are certain sets of equipment that are available to all players. On the other hand, some types of equipment are not very popular, or no longer consistent with the current gameplay. We aim to change the characteristics of the existing equipment and add new items designed for different vehicles to perform specific combat roles. We also want to add more variety in the choice of equipment and thereby help you develop your arsenal in the direction that matches your play style.

World of Tanks official Site

In other words: We’re not making enough money off of the existing equipment and the new “super” equipment we put into the game because we never really though anything through, so we’re going to hurl in a lot more equipment to milk even more money off of you once again without ever really thinking anything through. After all, if it’s broken, don’t fix it. Just keep adding to it.

The next section is New Balance.

EXCELLENT! I’m all set! Here’s mine!

But seriously, here’s what Wargaming has to say about “New Balance”:

New Balance will consist of two large parts. It will affect not only specific values and balance parameters, but also related features and game aspects.

The first part of the update will involve balance changes — various numerical values ​​and volumes, which we’ve carefully tested together with you through four iterations of Sandbox since mid-summer of this year. Here’s a brief summary of the main revisions:

World of Tanks Official Site

1. HP improvements for low-tier vehicles
2. A rework of all shell types and related changes to durability for all vehicles
3. Changes in the mechanics of dealing damage with HE shells
4. Rebalancing of SPGs and their shells

I’ll take these in order:

1. Low tier never needed improved hit points. It needed you not to hurl stupid levels of powerful HE and AP shells to ridiculously overpowered tanks that had no business ever being released into the game.
2. You’ve already tried that and failed miserably. I think I speak for all concerned when I say we have absolutely zero faith that you’re going to come even close to fixing this properly. It’s been 10 years and you still haven’t. This isn’t going to change anything for the better.
3. You’ve done that already 3 times in the last 10 years, none of which worked. See number 2 for my feelings on you actually fixing it this go ’round.
4. You’ve tried no less than 4 times to sort that out and somehow each time you tried you made it worse. Simple fact is that NOBODY has been happy with arty since day one and rather than limit the series to stop the bleeding you went all in and introduced up to T10 8 megaton monsters that turned a slight problem with arty into one of the most toxic arguments and issues in the game.

I don’t think for one second after 10 years of complete failure at sorting any of this out that it’s going to be sorted this time. In fact, I’ll bet a million dollars I don’t have that it all gets far, far worse.

A scary part of this section of “New Balance” is this little tidbit here:

Revise vehicle research branches: We intend to revise the composition of vehicles in the tech trees from Tier I to Tier IV in almost all nations. We’ll decrease the number of low-tier tanks in the tech trees, so you can more conveniently switch between different development branches, for example, between medium and heavy tanks. These low-tier tanks will remain in the game, they simply can no longer be researched.

World of Tanks Official Site – emphasis by EWOT

So they’re removing low tier tanks from the game. Which ones? Well, nobody knows for sure but you can bet it’s going to be the good ones. They’ll remove them so that only the old guard players have them and of course new players (not that there are any anymore) can’t get them.

This of courses will lead to even worse seal clubbing ability for the old guard than it presently has, which is considerable.

When is Wargaming going to learn that you can NOT attract new players when they are put at such a severe disadvantage from the very beginning that they literally have no chance on God’s green earth to compete?

This entire idea seems more of a hidden appeasement to the few old-timers still hanging on to this dead game than anything else. We’ll see as we find out more details about which OP tanks they’re going to remove and leave in the hands of existing players to the bereavement of any new player unfortunate enough to ever dare installing this game.

The next section is Front Line and Steel Hunter, two failed modes that nobody likes that they’ve changed several times only to have people hate it even more. This, again, will not change.

The next section is Battle of the Bloggers. Guess what?

NOBODY CARES!

The next section is a PvE event. You know, no matter how bad it turns out to be, and I’m thinking it’s going to be horrific based on my experiences in the PvE in World of Warships, it’s probably going to quickly become the single most played game mode. This will, of course, have the adverse effect of essentially emptying the public match queue’s which will no doubt lead to even longer queue times which, well, come on. We all know where this is going.

The next section is, of course, New Vehicles. Here is the funniest excerpt from that section:

We’re still compiling a list of the most suitable vehicles, studying archival documents and blueprints, and working closely with historians.

World of Tanks Official Site

Forgive us for just a moment if you please.

And then, of course:

And then of course there’s the one everybody has been on needles and pins waiting for.

THE PEARL RIVER MAP IS COMING BACK!!!

Wow. A map nobody ever really liked is being reworked into yet another 3D corridor map from hell. What a gift! What a bonus!

What complete malarkey.

So once again Wargaming “reworks” a complete mess into what is surely going to become an even bigger mess without ever once addressing the same old, tired issues everybody has actually complained about the last 10 years.

The funny part of it all: They say they listen to us. How ridiculous a statement is that?