Premium ammo - can it be fixed?

We all know this sound, the prominent fizzle, eating through the armor of our tank. The sound of HEAT.

Sooner or later, every one of us, World of Tanks players, meets an enemy player, who uses s.c. premium / gold ammunition and penetrates shots that wouldn't go in with regular ammo. It goes without saying that such situations cause frustration and annoyance. "Gold noob!" must be one of the most frequent chat messages of the game.

Countless forum threads have discussed and requested the removal of the increased-penetration ammo from the game. I bet it will never happen, simply because premium ammo bought for gold generates a too significant income for WarGaming (this is not just my opinion, WarGaming admitted it on numerous occasions). Therefore, instead of writing yet-another plea, I'd like to consider, what changes to the premium ammo mechanics could be introduced to improve the situation, assuming premium ammo is here to stay (and it must remain a source of income for WarGaming).

All of the following thoughts are based on my opinion, that World of Tanks would be a better game, if less premium ammo was used. I don't want to discuss the rationale for my opinion in this post, but the main reason is that, in most cases (with the exception of some very few, very low-penetration tanks), premium ammo nullifies the role of the armor in the game. What's the point of driving a highly armored tank, if the armor counts for nothing? You might as well drive a more agile, higher-DPM medium...

So, what are the possible ways of reducing the HEAT/APCR overdose? Here are a few ideas, which I discussed together with a friend, another World of Tanks player. Please note that none of the ideas solve the problem completely. They are rather a set of measures to reduce the problem.

Idea 1: Reduce XP for damage dealt using premium ammo

As far as I understand, the concept of experience points (XP) is based on the assumption, that it should reward good players, i.e. better players should receive more XP. One of the main factors determining the amount of XP a player receives for a battle is the damage dealt. The more damage you do, the more XP you receive. Premium ammo makes dealing damage easier, thus the amount of XP received for it should be less than the amount of XP received for the same amount of damage dealt with regular ammunition.

It is hard to express this measure in numbers, since the XP calculation formulas have not been published and I don't know how much of XP the damage dealt accounts for. However, the idea is that the reduction should be substantial (30% or more).

For example, let's consider two players - one using regular ammo, the second using premium ammo only. If they both deal the same amount of damage (for the sake of simplification, let's say to the same enemies of the same tiers), the "premium ammo player" would receive 30% less XP.

The XP difference could be varied based on the penetration value difference between:

• the two types of ammunition of the driven tank, or
• the average penetration value of tanks of the same class and tier and the premium ammo of the driven tank (this would make the negative effect less painful for tanks with low penetration values of regular ammunition)

Expected effects of this measure:

• Premium ammo would be less of a "grind help".
• Excessive use of premium ammo would become more visible (and thus embarrassing) in the end battle results.
• This measure would not affect a player's win rate. As such, it would still make it easier to get the daily bonus (grind help), however, the bonus would be less.
• This measure would be less effective on tier 10, since there is as good as no grinding. Many players driver their tier 10s for fun and for the win.

Idea 2: Compensate the damaged player with credits

Being on the receiving end of premium ammo can be not only frustrating, but also expensive in terms of ingame credits. Driving tanks of tier 9 and especially 10 is not profitable due to the high repair costs. While many tanks can protect themselves from taking damage from regular ammo, most tanks have no or little chance of bouncing premium shells. However, the game "punishes" them with the same repair costs. A possible way of alleviating the pains of getting shot with premium ammo, would be to get a compensation in credits for each damaging shot.

The compensation should be substantial, to really make a difference. For example, it could equal the cost of the premium shell.

Expected effects of this measure:

• On the one side, players receiving the damage would at least get a "feeling of justice", a compensation for being damaged by a player, who "took a shortcut".
• On the other side, some premium ammo users would think twice, before they "pump money" into the enemy.

Idea 3: Increase the credits cost of premium ammo (linearly)

First off, if premium ammo remains in the game, it must be available for credits. Premium ammo available only for gold (which on its own is available only for real money), would be a pay-to-win situation.

While offering premium ammo only for gold is not an option, the credits price can be increased in order to discourage its usage (my feeling is that premium ammo is still too cheap). This can be done twofold:

• Simply increase the credits price per shell. This has been done a few patches ago and could be done again (probably with relatively low development effort on WarGaming side). However, the next variant of the price increase is more interesting.
• Increase the price per shell depending on how many shells the player is loading. Many different cost functions are imaginable, but let's just assume the price per shell doubles, depending on the premium ammo percentage within the loadout (number of premium ammo shells / ammo capacity). Let's say a premium shell costs 1000 credits (for the first shell). A player taking 50% premium shells into the loadout, would pay 50% more per shell, that is 1500 credits. A "full-HEAT" player would pay 100% more per shell - 2000 credits.

Expected effects of the variable price increase:

• Only affects players buying premium ammo for credits.
• Highest effect for players, who use a lot of premium ammo. Players taking only a few shells ("for those special occasions") wouldn't be affected as much.
• Possible increase in purchases of ammo for gold (advantageous for WarGaming)

P.S. One more possible, very small measure falls into this category: don't provide premium ammo discounts. As a matter of fact, premium ammo discounts may have been abandoned already, because I don't remember any in the last months. In general, I think the discounts have been a bad idea, both for the players (suffering from premium ammo) and WarGaming (earning less money for ammo bought with gold).

Idea 4: Reduce (nerf) the penetration of premium ammo

One of the most obvious measures is to reduce (nerf) the penetration values of the premium ammo. There is not much to write about this, other than it would surely help. However, this measure has limited applicability, due to the sole nature of premium ammo - there must be a significant difference between regular and premium ammo. Significant means a difference that makes the ammo worth the much higher cost.

Idea 5: Premium ammo hard cap

The hard cap is being proposed in almost any premium ammo discussion.  Personally, I think it is a good idea, but I am not sure, if WarGaming will accept it. A hard cap on premium ammo would limit the number of premium shells that players can buy for gold, and thus reduce the income potential. The idea has been around for very long and if WarGaming was willing to do it, they would have done it already.