World War: Developers Q&A 30.11.22

• Are the vehicles used in WWM fully modified, stock, or the level we have them researched?

A. Vehicles are issued with all modifications, but with your crew level and your specialisation of the slot in which it is installed in the battle preparation window.

• Are there any progression bonuses (faster mission point progression perhaps) for playing in operations of your own squadron?

By playing in the operations of your squadron, you get a rating, which you can see in the "World War" tab of your squadron. This rating is added to the squadron's rating in the seasonal leaderboard. That is, if there are rewards for the squadron leaderboard, you help your squadron to be higher in the leaderboard. As for personal tasks for mission points, they can technically have a multiplier for earning in the squadron operations, if this is indicated in the task description. Simple tasks with symbolic prizes, as a rule, do not have this multiplier.

• Do WWM battles count as regular battles for any other in-game activities, such as daily tasks?

No. All these activities use the condition "Game modes: Battles against other players", and World War technically does not apply to them due to its features. For World War tasks it is explicitly stated: "Game modes: World War".

• WWM is featured in full Realistic Battle settings and not Arcade correct? The hybrid mode was ditched on the last iteration, correct?

Yes. The difficulty from the Tank RB is used, including for air vs air battles.

• So, WWM is basically a more elaborate version of RB Ground Forces / Combined battles now?

Firstly, it's a game mode where battles come from something more than just 20-30 people in a matchmaking queue on one battle rating and on random vehicles. In addition, squadron players can play it with a whole team, being in a single structure for a hundred people. With deep organisation, management and separation of roles.

• To initiate an operation you need to have the rank of Sergeant (or higher), and there should be at least 20 members in the squadron?

Yes. At the same time, these 20 members must have rank III units (i.e. they must have access to the WWM).

• Is it intended that there are missions with different map iterations compared to random battle ones? Or are these Old maps with old layouts?

In World War, we can do new more diverse and not quite classic missions, including in other parts of existing maps. So some famous locations can be played in a new way here.

• Does matchmaking work in WWM? It’s hard to believe that during prime time only a single random player would be available. 5 vs 20 matches don’t look too good.

There’s no matchmaking in WWM. We’ve added (November 2022) the mechanic for random players to search for Operations that seeks to add in each Operation an equal number of players that would be enough for the maximum number of battles. There is a problems, however: each side in an Operation can consist of 80 players (the ones that were added to it and were in the Operation or its battles during the last 5 minutes are counted), but we see battles of 3 vs 7 and wonder where are the remaining 150 players. It’s the first time this feature appeared in War Thunder, and we already have plans to improve it: we’ll be working on balancing the players in an Operation, and not in separate battles of an Operation.

• Why add new players to a battle whose outcome is already predetermined?

You see the state of the battle before entering it and can make the decision for yourself. Mechanics-wise, it may be hard for the game to understand whether the outcome is already determined or not. For example, two players are capturing the point in the Assault / Defense mode, but a couple minutes before the defending commander called for reinforcements that included bombers that have pushed both attackers from the point. Then the bombers destroyed all the decent enemy tanks, choking the offense. It would seem that 5 seconds are left before victory / defeat, but one crafty bomber managed to turn the tables.

It would also be weird to forbid entering the battle after some time has passed. It could be helpful to go in 5-7-8 minutes after the battle had begun and finish pushing the enemy or holding the line. Or just destroy even more enemy vehicles during the remaining time.

In WWM there’s no real reason to look at each separate battle for balance and justice. Each of them is merely a step towards victory or loss in the Operation. And some of those steps are very different from the random battles and can frighten an unprepared player.

• Will we see vehicles that aren't in the British tech tree but are in other tech trees that fought at El Alamein be implemented such as the P-40 Kittyhawk? The P-40-E in the American tech tree has RAF skins inc. ones that fought at the battle.

No. Technically, a player can come into a session with slots from only one country. It's technically impossible to use vehicles from different tech trees in battle.

• Are the points that are shown, for example, when choosing “Battle at El Alamein” the points that the regiment will receive in case of victory in Operations based on the Elo system (meaning that their amount depends on the enemy’s rating)? And the points that are shown when choosing “All Operations” are the regiment points for victories + points for player’s actions?

Yes, the player’s rating isn’t added to the regiment’s rating in an Operation. There’s not much point in separate leaderboards for each Operation.

• What is the player’s rating based on? Victories, player kills, AI kills, deaths, something else?

You can see the rules for determining the player’s rating in this Wiki article: https://wiki.warthunder.com/World_War:_How_ratings_will_be_calculated

• Does technical victory over an enemy result in way less points?

No. The way you achieved your victory doesn’t matter when calculating the rating at the end of an Operation. But in operations with an AFK commander there may be less battles and less enemies in them, and that may result in a lower rating. But not much.

• Has it been considered for operational commanders to have the ability to send a message to all the squadrons and also the mercs currently in the operation through the chat system, if only to say "good job", at the end? Even something unidirectional like that would help people feel as part of a team.

There are such plans.

• On the Operations map there are railways, do they increase the speed of movement of the armies?

They don’t.

• Is there any chance at all that the players might see, in the future, any form of this mode in an Open World / Sandbox / Arena Style game play, with much larger maps based on the acquisition & control of territory on these type of maps, consisting of larger teams, such as 64 v 64 or even 128 v 128?

There are no such plans and never have been.