Using Photoshop to make my own reticle tool with circles representing 10, 20, 30 and 50% reticle radius from the center that I can scale and paste over screenshots, and BA to give me an appropriate angle to use my new little reticle tool from... but for those unfamiliar (For whatever reason), I'll explain why I selected these intervals...



So here's that infamous picture from 9.6...

As has been explained a million times by players over the internet and by wargaming, it used to be that 16% of all shots traveled straight and true and into the inner 10% of the reticle radius, while an additional 52.2% of all shots would land between 10 and 50% of your reticle's radius, for a total of 68.2% of all shots landing within half your reticle's radius... but with 9.6, 6% of all shots were taken from the inner 10% of reticle radius and into the 10-30% radius. The intended effect was to reduce snapshot reliability and as a bonus that WG was more than happy to accept, increase the effectiveness of armored vehicles by reducing the likelihood of their weakpoints being sniped.

However, what this meant for arty was particularly dramatic in that it reduced the reliability of our shots at extensive ranges. Already, many a player who has played the class extensively and down to those who play it only to do the missions have gone on about arty being useless now... in much the same way that they did back in the 8.6 patch... at extreme ranges, you start to have significant miss zones within the 10-30% reticle radius zone. What was also noticed by players looking at the pictures was that a significant portion of the shot% in the picture released by WG that landed in the 50-100% radius zone was redistributed to within the 30-50% radius zone. While the possibility that this had been an anomalous fluke during their 3k shot test does exist, from my experiences since the changes, I don't think so .



So now I give you what a Vented BIA M55's reticle would look like on an E75 sitting at 547m on a slope that angles away from your position. I have my tool centered on where i was aimed at the moment I took my shot, though this screencap is for the moment of shell impact, slightly mistimed in that the E75 did get its center of mass a little past where I was aimed by the time my shell hit.

While it isn't a perfect reperesentation of the angle that the shell would be coming down at during the moment of impact, it does give you a good example of my likelihood to score the hit... my 10% of reticle radius zone is completely within the E75's profile for the shell's trajectory... as is nearly all of the 11-20% radius zone... what isn't covered by the E-75's profile is going to hit the ground close enough to splash it for significant damage. The 20-30% radius zone is also extensively filled by the E-75... a significant portion of the slim miss chance that goes low will end up splashing it anyways, while the small portion that flies above the engine deck will miss entirely. You can see also that a significant portion of the 30-50% radius zone is also filled in by the E-75's profile... I am well within the range that sniping players who know how to take advantage of the corners of the render box can take their shots within (though not at the sort of angle they could take advantage of that from), I am sitting a little ways outside the max spotting range of the ridgeline's center rather than going to camp in bushes in the corners so that I could further reduce the range on my shots as having gone to E1 could easily have added 100+m to the range on this shot and reduced my chances of scoring hits on this E75.

The result is the shot presented here... If the current speculation on shots from the 50-100% radius zone being redistributed to the 30-50% radius zone were to be ignored, I'm looking at having around a 40% chance of landing this shot at minimum... essentially a coin flip... if it turns out that the speculation is indeed true, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that is the case, my chances of landing this shot may actually have approached or exceeded 60%... or rather that my chances of landing a shot like this at this distance may very well have been buffed by the accuracy changes, though my ability to focus on the very soft engine deck armor has been nerfed in all situations. For this particular shot, RNG gave me a 10-20% radius roll high and to the left of where I was aimed.



What's more is that the early game phases where players are still fairly static or predictable has been extended in length, generally by 2 minutes from my own experience, allowing me an average of 2 or 3 more shots before the mediums run rampant and kill everyone and everything.

From what I'm seeing on VB, and from my own experiences... the result of these accuracy changes has been abysmal for players who find themselves camping the base for the whole match trying to fire on targets with some form of cover against base angles, I'm coming across players now getting as low as 25% hit rates or even less on their overall for even very accurate artillery and dropping sharply still, while players who take advantage of max view range limitations, camo and hard cover may actually be feeling like they've been buffed in their overall performance on the maps that allow for artillery to take up more forward positions... I myself have had a few matches where I couldn't miss any shot because I was arcing my shells low hard cover and into targets as little as 300m away, in addition to getting more shots in on easy targets... my rate on achieving High Calibers and Gores in my M53/55 for example has accelerated since the changes, and I'm more easily able to positively influence the matches as reflected by the sharp jump in my M53/55's winrate from an almost static 54% before the 9.6 changes, to 57% and climbing sharply.



9.6 isn't the end of the world for artillery, and if you learn to make use of the limitations on spotting mechancis to sneak in closer to the action, you can actually reap the benefits from patch 9.6 as well.



To those who drive real tanks, I offer the advise that you check your corners... I'm ending up behind enemy lines quite frequently nowadays with the view range nerfs on matches where my team folds fast, and it's allowed me a few Courageous Resistance bonuses and even a few victories for the amount of damage I get to do firing from behind you.

Edited by Sokolniki, Mar 28 2015 - 19:05.