Map Changes:
Fisherman's Bay: A step in the right direction, just brings us closer back to the pre-HD Fisherman's Bay, which was the better version.
Pilsen: Hard to tell on the test server. Most of the changes feel very minor and insignificant towards gameplay. The buildings near the TD area is a good thing, but it can help both teams (EG side defending from factory can send a tank to the building to be a counter to tanks pushing the factory).
Himmelsdorf: Changes feel alright, they didn't seem very necessary, but I don't think it hurts gameplay. The best change was the rubble pile up on the hill. Everything else seems kind of unecessary.
Artic Region: Northeast team did have fewer defensive positions, but this feels overboard. Now it's a lot easier to defend against the southern push from the northeast, on top of the defense against the north. The southern team feels like it can only really excel defending against the north in comparison.
Decals:
I have no complaints about the decals. They're a cool concept, and continue to expand on the customization many players have wanted. I do look forwards to seeing more customization options, such as logs, chains, netting, etc. in the future, if customization continues to be developed as planned.
Mission Changes:
Excalibur: The changes to the Excalibur missions were necessary; since they just took too long to complete before. The tweaks are an improvement.
Obj. 260: The changes to the Platooning missions feel completely unnecessary. The update article claimed that they were changed to make it "easier for solo players to complete", but now it just became more difficult. Doing 6,000 damage in a medium is a lot harder than getting 7 kills of 3 different types.
Why not give it an option instead - You can do 7 kills of 3 different types as a Platoon, or you can do 6,000 damage solo.
Reward Tank Changes:
Obj. 260: The changes feel nice. The gun was already great, but improving it to make it feel "special" is fine by me. The turret armor buffs were also necessary. I know a lot of people said they felt excessive, but Obj. 260 only has 5 degrees of gun depression on a rather weak hull platform, even when comparing to other "heaviums". As such, giving it a better hull / turret than heaviums, but worse hull / gun depression only makes sense to me.
T-55A: These changes should have been made as soon as the T-54 got its turret armor buffed. The moment T-54 got its turret buffs, and then gun changes, the T-55A became completely irrelevant as a tank. These changes finally bring it back to the spotlight, which is of course a good thing - I just don't understand why it took this long to make these changes.
Grand Battles:
Grand Battles should be a separate game mode available for selection. That way when you want to test Grand Battles, you can just select them - Kind of like you would with Frontlines. It's hard to test a Grand Battles map if you keep ending up in Random Battles.
Bots:
I didn't test the bots, so I can't say whether they're any good or not. However, I'm completely fine with the concept of adding bots to lower Tiers to speed up queue times.
However, I do think that bots should be limited to Tiers 1-3. Taking them all the way up to Tier 5 seems excessive.
Edited by Scorpiany, Nov 14 2018 - 18:29.
1
