A Premium today or a tech tree tomorrow?

Author: sp15

So with the leak of Swiss and Hungarian tanks being added as premiums I think there is a very important topic we should cover. That topic is what WG are doing and what they should be doing with the remaining part of the scrapped EU tree.

Panzer 61 a improved Pz 58 and once a Swiss tier 10 medium candidate

In early 2015 the EU tree was split into its component nations to avoid the problems and immense size of such a tree. When this happened Czechoslovakia and Sweden both had enough content and research done to provide full tech trees (except for Czech heavy’s). It was also clear that the minor nations like Hungary, Poland and Spain who could only build partial branches couldn’t be given their own trees due to the lack of high tier content (which is where WG makes their money). Instead as evidenced by the inclusion of the Turan 3 prototype and Toldi 3 in the German tree. The minor nation’s tanks were included within the larger trees as premiums with the possibility of partial branches within that tree as well (this will likely happen with the Hungarians).

Pzk 68 a turreted 155mm autoloader SGP that was once a tier 10 candidate

This left three nations who didn’t have the amount of research and content that the Czechoslovak and Swedish trees had but still could complete at least one or more full branches on their own. These nations were Italy, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. At the end of 2014 Switzerland had been one of the major nations comprising the EU tree. Switzerland offered the potential of 3 branches including mediums, tank destroyers and SPG’s all with historical tier 10 candidates. But now it’s pretty clear none of that will happen. The Panzer 58 was a Swiss medium tank that had occupied a vital spot in the Swiss medium line and without it the whole tree crumbles with no hope of even a partial line of regular vehicles. With its inclusion as a “German” tier 8 premium tank WG has made it clear that there isn’t going to be a Swiss line and this also implies that the same fate probably awaits for Italian and Yugoslav tanks.

Mowag taifun the would be Swiss tier 10 TD candidate

So why scrap a tech tree?

Most of you probably know that there is already a German tier 8 premium medium tank in the game. The Panther 88 was added in patch 9,5 to massive backlash from fans. Unusually the tank had been unavailable to test on the test server and when it hit the live server people quickly found out that it was one of the worst tier 8 premiums. In response WG lowered the price of the tank and even offered a gold compensation or a refund for players who had bought the tank.
After this debacle WG started to search for a better tank than the Panther 88, not to replace it but to provide a more attractive tank which would sell better. The only option for this would have been an early Leopard 1 prototype but it seems that WG was afraid it would be too similar to the tier 9 and started searching elsewhere. And they found their tank, just not in the German tree.

This is what I believe to be the main reason for the scrapping of the Swiss tree, but the decision was probably justified atf WG by the supposedly small player base and a perceived lack of information on some of the tanks. Either way it’s now pretty clear that the Swiss tree was broken up to create more premium tanks even if it means less content in the long run. And as I said earlier Yugoslav and Italian tanks are very likely to meet the same fate.


So what do we take away from this?

Overall this is part of a larger shift within WoT to focus more on adding premium content. Ever since the introduction of HD models WG has introduced less and less new branches and more and more premiums. This is fine for new players who already are spoiled for choice or players who don’t want the vehicles used in clanwars or such to change. However for players like me who mainly go back to the game to experience new content this is a huge letdown.


So what can we do?

I know that it might seem pointless since it’s probably too late to change WG’s mind about Switzerland but I would like to set up a Poll here on Status report because I want to see your opinions on the matter. That might still cause WG to think twice before throwing away the Italian or Yugoslav trees in favor of a couple of premiums or so we can hope.



Thanks for the cooperation. :)