DEVELOPER BLOG: TIER 9

Hey Commanders,

Roulbox here, I hope you are all well and safe. Today I am glad to introduce Eddball, War Machine's Game Designer! Eddball will walk us through interesting information and facts regarding Tier 9 that I am pretty sure our Commanders are eager to know about!

Without further Ado, Let’s dig into it!

Roulbox: Hey Eddball, thanks for being here with us! We are all very excited to know about Tier 9

Eddball: Hey Roulbox, it’s an honour to participate in the Tier 9 Reveal! Tier 9 has been designed to be the most fun and most competitive experience yet in War Machines, and we have been hard at work to achieve this objective, alongside implementing new techs, new power-ups and preparing the ground for even more awesome content in the near future.

Now, focusing on Tier 9, let me start by explaining that our ninth tier of Tanks is quite different from our previous tiers in many ways. Right away, players will notice there is no “Premium” Tank, meaning two things: first, that none of the four new tanks requires a subscription to be purchased, and second, all 4 new tanks are competitive and balanced between them, instead of having the one clearly stronger option.

Tier 9 also comes accompanied by new power-ups, new tech skills, and the ability to equip more than one tech skill at the same time, which will become available later, you can check more info on this in the next questions!

Roulbox: Wow! That's a big change! What can you tell our Commanders about the process of deciding and designing these new tanks?

Eddball: Well, it was a very thorough process that involved a lot of research on the best MBTs (Main Battle Tanks) currently in service. Our desire was to contemplate countries and designs that weren’t part of the game yet and even Player’s participation! We invited over a hundred players to participate in a survey! We have chosen these players from diverse locations based on their engagement towards War Machines. They answered some questions that helped us decide on the T9 roster.

Once these steps were done, we had a short and very interesting list, but we still had too many candidates and had to pick the 4 that would best fit our game. Honestly, I was baffled by how diverse, specialized and impressive these machines can be. In the end, we knew we had to base our decisions on what we thought was best for Tier 9 and for War Machines in general. If your favourite vehicle didn’t get picked, don’t lose hope! Who knows what surprises the next months might bring to our game? 😉

Anyway, once we decided on four amazing Tanks, it was then time to really dive deep, design their systems, techs and stats, implement them in-game and work on balancing. Each Tier 9 Tank has its own strengths, favouring different playstyles and techs. We put serious effort into being loyal to each tank’s properties, technologies and engagement styles. We really hope you’ll enjoy our picks and that all clans will find powerful and creative ways to combine them and their playstyles to be victorious.

Roulbox: Very interesting to know about this process, I imagine that choosing the 4 tanks was a hard decision to make! You also mentioned new Power-Ups... Are we getting Missile Storm 7? 👀

Eddball: Hahaha No, we’re not adding a new Missile Storm to Tier 9. And while we are adding a few upgraded versions of past Power-ups to the selection, there are 2 completely fresh ones! No spoilers on them yet, though.

Roulbox: Oh come on Edball! Don't do this to us! hahaha. Can you tell us something about the new tech skills then?

Eddball: For Tier 9, we have selected some of our Commanders’ favourite techs, plus four completely new tech skills. The new ones are:

Hasty - Equipping this tech will provide a boost in movement speed at the beginning of the battle and on every respawn. It’ll last several seconds, to make sure Commanders have time to reposition and regroup every time they are brought back into the fray.

Slippery - This tech provides a short speed boost right after your tank gets hit by an enemy shot, allowing for defensive manoeuvres or a more aggressive tactical advance in order to counter-attack.

APS - The apex of defensive technology! The active protection system has a chance to find and destroy projectiles that are heading towards your tank before they reach you. And just to add insult to injury (or rather injury to insult?), once an enemy shot is destroyed by APS, it explodes and deals damage to enemies close by in a small area. In our game, it will be capable of interrupting various types of enemy shots, but for the sake of balancing, it won’t be capable of interrupting every projectile or source of damage.

Wildfire: An improved version of Flamethrower, combined with corroding chemicals, to set your enemies ablaze. It’ll spark blue flames upon your enemies, and has a faster rate of damage than our previous flame tech

Roulbox: Ok! This is exciting and I am pretty sure that our Commanders can't wait to have their hands on the new tanks! My last question will be the best one: Were you serious when you mentioned "Multiple tech skills equipped at once"? 😲

Eddball: Yes! one of the biggest changes we are planning is the ability to equip more than one tech skill at a time! We know how much of a commitment it is to choose a tank and invest in its upgrades and research, and that’s why we think it’s important to share this information with our Commanders early on. Bear in mind that this functionality will not be available right away when Tier 9 launches, it’ll come as an expansion later on, but when it does (probably still in 2021!), it will open a new world of possibilities in how you set your tank up for battle.

Tier 9 Tanks will be able to equip up to three tech skills at once, out of six tech options for each tank. All T9 research trees are similar and require the same amount of tech points to be fully researched and each tank has a very different list of tech skills, so deciding your favourite Tier 9 Tank will have to be based on your personal preference of playstyle and strategy.

Now, we know tech skills are not the only requirement to choose your T9 Tank, so we will provide more specific details for each Tier 9 Tank in the following days.

Roulbox: Well, I already said it but I am excited!! I imagine our community is also excited to read about this news! Thank you very much for sharing this moment with us Eddball and I hope to see you around again soon!

Commanders, I hope that you found this information valuable and interesting. We will continue bringing you first-hand information from the development team in the future! In the meantime, make sure to follow us on our social media channels and keep up to date with all the latest War Machines news!

We also have some detailed blogs about the New Power-Ups, Merkava IV, T-90 MS, PT-91 Twardy, and T-84 Oplot-M, so go check it out!