So you want to know the story of Armored Warfare do you? Well I guess you better get comfortable and prepare yourself for a tale of incompetence, disappointment and frustration.

2015 - Closed Beta:
Things aren't so bad. Game has a lot of promise.
PvE is challenging and a series of missions.
Each vehicle has it's role and game is well balanced.
Word of rewarding Campaign modes for PvP and PvE.
PvP is a bit stale and just a copy of WoT, but ignored cause everyone assumes it's just a placeholder.
Arty mechanics are generally fair and the class is well balanced without being frustrating.
Game has uses for various shells; HEAT does High Damage but can be stopped by various countermeasures, AP does High Pen and stopped by nothing but can Overpen Targets reducing it's effectiveness against soft vehicles, HE is for when you need to damage but can't pen or fucking up soft skinned vehicles, HESH is your /bane/ round for trolling vehicles by causing constant vehicle fires and taking them out by killing crew and modules.
Game promises to be +/- 1 Tier maximum in matchmaking, ideally +/- 0 Tier and Tiers are balanced around this fact, stopping one thing that most players hate in WoT.
Everyone looking forward to release.

2015 - Open Beta a.k.a “Release”:
Everything seems just as it is in Closed Beta
Though quickly people complain about lack of maps and map size.
Evident that some Premium vehicles are blatantly OP at low Tiers
Nobody sure about Mid Tier Balance yet as nobody is there
Everyone is playing +/- 0 Tier so nobody notices power creeps between Tiers.
One glaring issue noted straight away is the gross imbalance between Non-Premium and Premium Time earnings; Premium players earning on average 3-4x more Credits and Rep than regular players.
Overall though sentiment is “It'll be fixed!”

2015 - First Weeks:
The first of the “lolcow whales” start bitching and complaining about various things.
First on their agenda is that PvE has killed the game as they fail to grasp that after rushing to Tier 8 paying countless shekels for the displeasure that the vast overall majority of players are still playing around Tiers 1-4. Thus begins the first Crusade against the only unique gamemode this game has.
Second is they want +/- 2 Tier matchmaking like WoT has for some retarded reason.
Third they constantly demand High Tier vehicles and actively shit on anything Early Cold War, despite the fact that a lot of the vehicles that would draw enthusiasts in and are more interesting are from this time period. Heaven forbid if you mention WW2 vehicles which causes autistic rages by retards who fail to comprehend that a lot of WW2 vehicles were heavily modernized for the Cold War and some saw active combat till the 90's.
Devs begin to nerf some vehicles that don't need nerfed making them sort of useless.
People discover power gaps between Tiers is insane as some players drop off so +/- 1 Tier matchmaking becomes common.
Players begin to complain about lack of map choice and maps being too small for 15vs15 maps, noting that the CryEngine is capable of far better and larger maps.
People begin to also question why iconic Cold War vehicles such as the T-55, Centurion, AMX-13 and Merkava are not in game, comparing not having those in game to World of Tanks not having Tanks like the Sherman, Tiger or T-34 in game.
Bugs become more pronounced and an issue but players have faith.

2015 - First Months:
This is when shit begins to fall flat.
Regular Players reach Tier 5 Tanks
Power gap between Tier 5 and Tier 6 causes players to leave PvP in droves as Tier 5 players are getting stomped by Tier 6 Premiums that they have no chance to compete against.
Some players question why they released Tier 6 Premiums so early if matchmaking couldn't handle it but get silenced.
Tier 5 Players begin infesting PvE Hards, but as there isn't that many of them yet begin pulling Tier 4's in Hards against very powerful bots that while some Tier 4's can deal with, others don't have a hope in hell against.
Players bitch on forums asking for tighter matchmaking restrictions.
Devs respond by restricting PvE Hards to Tier 5 and above, and PvE Mediums to Tier 3 and above, ignoring heavily that the T-54 at Tier 2 out armours everything at Tier 3 at the time and the Tier 2 Walker Bulldog is well loved by the community and considered better than the Scorpion at Tier 3. Tier 2's thus become PvP only or be bored to death stuck in boring PvE matches, not that anyone complains.
Around this time devs completely rework spotting mechanics which doesn't make any sense as it was working fine before. New system works alright but still doesn't explain why the need for change.
Devs also remove Overpenetration mechanic as they believe it not working as intended. Considered a massive mistake by most.
Critical bugs such as kicked to garage run rampant during this time. Also performance manages to degrade consistently with each patch.
Players are getting bored with the PvP mode as it's nothing new and nothing they haven't played already on World of Tanks, and just equally as cancerous. Start asking when Battalion Wars are coming. Lolcows take this as confirmation that PvE is killing the game despite the fact that if PvE was not available player count would drop like a rock.
Crusade against Artillery really picks up pace, even though to be hit by the thing you literally have to ignore every single warning you have and sit still and even then it won't ruin your day. Devs begin the nerf of this class into nothingness. Some players ask why SPG's are in game to begin with considering maps are far too small for them.
At Mid Tiers and High Tiers players begin demanding more open maps as MBT's are dominating due to tight corridors. Devs response is to make more corridors maps.
Players also demand for Israeli and French Vehicles. Devs response is to announce Tier 9 vehicles despite heavy issues already with balance at High Tiers and power gaps between Tiers.
As an additional note players notice that some vehicles are completely oversized or badly modelled which actually causes them to have glaring issues in game. Chieftain for example is approximately 30% oversized and is much larger than Tanks it is in real life smaller than.

2015 - Run up to Christmas:
Devs offer reskinned Premium vehicles at Halloween as a special deal. Nobody thinks much of it at time but it sets the tone for the next year.
Devs release Tier 9 vehicles and surprise surprise, they break the game. They absolutely destroy High Tier PvP queues as Tier 9's are infinitely more powerful than Tier 8's that nobody can compete. The power gaps are immense to the point that Tier 9's are close to unkillable and while doing up to twice the damage as Tier 8's. Players beg devs not to release Tier 10's and to fix this shit.
Devs begin to make PvE more frustrating than fun, by making Arty Aimbots that will focus down a player with no warning and punishing players heavily who want to flank by making bots spawn on players or by making invisible walls.
PvP is ignored as devs presume everything is alright and don't attempt to make it fresh, despite it bleeding players.
Players discover via PvE how broken HE-Frag is; bots are spamming it hitting both hull and turret for double damage. Players soon discover they can do the same in PvP and High Tiers become HE Spam fests as HE shells do more damage than any other shell, even to armoured targets.
Players also note that wheels and track damage model is so broken that wheels and tracks can literally absorb damage completely and block shots, essentially making shooting the side hull of any vehicle a pointless endeavour.
Devs respond by tackling the symptoms not the cause. HE is nerfed into oblivion but you can still do double damage with it. Some vehicles that rely on HE shells are beyond useless now.
Devs introduce an exclusive tank that can only be acquired via twitch streamers. This pisses off the community as the twitch bubble had not only burst with the vast majority of players disliking live streamers, but also the only way to get the vehicle is to NOT play game. Vehicles find their way onto ebay as twitch streamers who don't support the game make shekels.
Low Tiers also are dying off meaning that new players to the game are finding difficulty finding matches. Despite warnings that this may become a major issue and there needs to be incentive to play Low Tiers devs ignore this as well, pushing heavily the need for “MOAR HIGH TIER VEHICLES!”
Christmas comes and devs decide to reskin progression vehicles and sell them as Premium vehicles. Whales gobble them up but community raises an eyebrow to this.
Everything sort of forgiven though with free gift of Type-59 Premium Tank and promise of Chinese Tonks.

2016 – Q1
Chinese Tonk line comes
Just one line, players assume more to come.
Shot delay becomes pronounced giving players about a half a second to a full second of delay before their gun decides to actually fire.
Then SIMM comes, essentially the worst part of WoT's matchmaking which means the matchmaking actively tries to stop you winning.
Players get pissed being put on fail teams to lower their win ratio
Devs also believe that rewards should be tied to win ratio, ignoring team play.
To further kill PvP Battalions begin abusing Artillery Matchmaking such as stacking High Tiers in a Mid Tier match using Mid Tier Arty to help pad wins.
North America is starting to become a Ghost Town and at peak times 8vs8's are not uncommon.
Players are also sick of PvE as Light Tank bots have ridiculous exaggerated pen and can perform snapshots without even looking at players.
PvE also has ridiculous Arty bots that give next to no warning and constantly hit, focusing down one player above all else in a match. To make matters worse devs block off flanking opportunities in most maps making it so you have to be exposed to Arty. Devs say there is no problem despite evidence being posted otherwise.
A few events are ran to entice players to keep playing but overall they are half assed, rarely rewarding, function properly or activate on schedule. This sets the tone for pretty much any event the company hosts.
To make matters worse for population, the publisher refuses to advertise in EU and NA.
They also decide to make it so that you can only use gold to purchase packages and that those packages will be locked to either EU or NA server and not shared with both servers as before. This is counter to what players wanted which is the ability to pay either gold or cash for Premiums.
Players become aware of the Russian server and how better treated the players are. Russians get better deals, can pay for Premiums with either cash or gold, events that work, a Persistent Test Server and on top of it all, mail.ru actually advertises for the RU server.

2016 – Q2:
Tier 10's are released and if you think Tier 9's were ridiculous on power creep then Tier 10's were a whole new level.
In reaction MBT's are nerfed to the point that unless it's Russian or British, go home. Brits because they have armour and Russians cause they have firepower plus lots of countermeasures to HEAT and ATGM's.
Players begin to complain about High Tier Tanks being set on fire due to being shot in the headlights. Turns out that every Tank has the same internal damage model which causes Tanks that shouldn't catch fire easily to burn out easily even from the front.
Module damage changes occur making HESH almost useless then it is made that vehicles can catch fire once making HESH pointless. This infuriates /bane/ and makes the Tier 3 Scorpion Tank useless.
M1 Abrams series is useless cause it has a massive ass weakspot driver hatch than anyone can pen. Leopards have same issue.
PvP on NA at low Tiers is so non-existent that they have made Tiers 1+2 PvE only due to population issues.
Devs fix the “snapshot” issue in PvE but that only makes shot delay worse and far more apparent.
Rate of fire changes happen which fucks up vehicles with small magazines or salvo loads up beyond redemption. Artillery is particularly nerfed into uselessness as their reload speed is in the 20+ seconds for far too little damage which makes them worthless in any match. Devs respond by giving Arty a massive bonus to earnings which means you can literally fire one shot and do nothing the entire match yet become top of the scoreboard. This calls the Crusade against Arty into full swing.
Devs promise Lords of War mode though to revitalize the game, essentially players could form teams and fight over battlefields for rewards in a seasonal tournament setting. It's the gamemode everyone has been waiting for and slated as what was going to replace PvP altogether to set it apart from it's competitors.
Additionally some balance changes are coming to make missiles more useful and powerful.
Tons of new vehicles teased in development and new vehicle lines without actually anything ending up in game.
E3 Humble Bundle happens which contains the Chieftain Mk 6, a Premium vehicle that was exclusive for twitch streamers sold for $1 that also comes with 1500 Gold.
Only vehicles that are “new” are all  Premium vehicles and a lot of choices for Premium vehicles are either reskins or vehicles that are actually are common to see in active service. Casing point the AMX-10RCR
Devs for “Independence Day” and “Bastille Day” release expensive bundle packs for gold only that can be considered grab deals.
Overall though it is the beginning of the content drought and consistent grab deals with reskinned progression vehicles sold as Premiums.

2016 – Q3:
Start of the most facepalm inducing fuckups.
SIMM finally ends but the damage has already been done.
After much outcry players on NA and EU gain access to a PTS server to test Lords of War
Ends up bugged so only a few tiers are playable, plus only available at very short intervals.
On top of this they run a highly rewarding PvP revival event so most players end up playing that instead.
Devs fix it but there is not really enough population to test it, along with the schedule for it is so short that by the time most players have downloaded it the testing is over.
Missile Changes in the PTS go untested overall.
When played AFV's absolutely dominate every other class in the game, missile armed AFV's make Light Tanks in game redundant.
For the test season top players were meant to get gold and a High Tier Premium TD. Due to a bug all players who played on the PTS got it and later had to have their gold and TD removed. Some players who had spent the gold had to buy gold to unlock their accounts.
Afterwards complete silence on Lords of War.
The Grab Deals intensify, someone has the bright idea to host a flash sale for reskinned vehicle packages. This also contains about 100 packages of all in one type for a low amount which a lot of players desire. When the sale goes live the site crashes for over an hour as the mass traffic essentially creates a self inflicted DDOS attack. Once it clears players are disheartened to discover that all 100 packages were already gone, sold 10 minutes before the sale officially started. Turns out the sales page was revealed on the French Twitter account early and all 100 packages were sold before the sale actually started. They eventually add 300 more packages for players to buy as an “apology” but overall the community is pissed.
A new collectors edition is released with Tanks with a package is $99. It would have been well over $100 if a few players hadn't leaked the package early and cause a shistorm on the forums.
The AMX-10RCR is released in the progression tree as a Premium. This causes a shitstorm with a lot of the community as some were given the impression it wouldn't be released for a long time and thus bought the overly expensive Bastille Edition because of it, while others thought it was going to be a regular progression vehicle.
The Merkava IIB is released which pisses off the community again even though it was highly demanded significantly for two reasons. One it is yet another Premium vehicle and second the devs got confused between the Merkava IIB and IID which results in a severely overtiered vehicle that can't compete. To summarize it is a vehicle using Steel and a 105mm gun in a Tier where Composite Armour and 120mm+ is the norm. Devs have to severely inflated it's stats for it to compete and state they will change it into the Merkava IID.
It is now about third of the year since actual content was added to this game. Players are pissed with constant Premiums and reskins that devs note that they will tone it down a little and that future Premiums will only be rare or experimental vehicles.
Sensing shit is going down fast devs quickly announce Global Operations mode which is a PvPvE mode sort of similar to War Thunder's ground battles complete with AI bots, deployable defences and even call-in airstrikes
Also announce some new changes to damage models and some fixes for PvE bots to make them more “Challenging”
Devs rush this onto the PTS, but make it so that everything is unlocked. Players end up testing only Global Ops on Tier 10's only and refuse to try out any other vehicles. The end result is that the only useful information comes from the RU server PTS as players there actually bother with the Mid and Low Tiers.

2016 - Q4
Global Ops patch is released and it is considered both a blessing and a disaster.
Global Ops not only splits the PvP queues, it is restricted to Tier 5+. It also comes with only one map which means after a week everyone is bored with it.
So many bugs came out that at the height of the silliness, rear armour on certain vehicles would absorb shots. It wasn't uncommon to see M60 Pattons driving in reverse because their rear armour was invincible.
PvE also suffers from aimbots AI which will target ridiculous weakpoints on the move now. This is countered though by the game's version of the “Bunny Hop” where players discover if they park on the top of a hill and rock their Tanks back and forth the AI targetting goes crazy and can't hit them. The same is if they wiggle on the move.
PvP in North America now pretty much dies. EU PvP is like NA was earlier in the year.
New players cannot find PvE matches in low Tiers due to lack of players in NA causing complaints on forums that go ignored as have countless warnings this would happen.
But hey they add the IS-7 to the game as a free Premium right?
They end up nerfing the shit out of ramming due to players abusing ramming damage with the IS-7.
After the fact that everything wasn't fixed after Global Ops and balance is going out the window as players are forced to face a wider Tier spread, devs announced “Balance 2.0” which pretty much completely redesigns the game from the head up, coming with it a lot of things players want such as Tier balancing, new vehicles bundled with a lot of things players don't want. Players are stuck waiting for this “Hail Mary” patch now to finally get new content.
Come Halloween they release reskinned versions of the exclusive Founder's vehicles. While they said that Founders vehicles would be exclusive for a year, they said that the Founders would get an exclusive skin for them, which never happens.
Also revealed that there was meant to be an exclusive Halloween Event vehicle that never surfaced. Devs apparently took too long to develop it it wasn't ready in time.
Still waiting for 0.19 patch, devs say it will be Christmas at latest which means it will be over 3 months since last patch.
Christmas comes and still no update.
What happens is a reskin of older collectors vehicles put out on sale, a massive grab deal for whales to bite onto, and a gold sale that happens during the sale pissing off players.
To top it all off it is then announced that development will no longer be done by Obsidian and that the development would instead be done at an inhouse studio of Mail.ru in Moscow. This causes widespread panic mode on forums and players to cite that AW will turn into WoT 2.0.

2017 – Pre Imbalance 2.0:
January comes and still no 0.19 patch. Players are left scratching their asses wondering when this patch is coming.
Transfer of assets from Obsidian to Mail.ru dev underway, most players assume this is why it was delayed.
Russians finally get to test the patch on their PTS at the end of January and literally all feedback is negative.
Devs attempted to bring balance to the game by overnerfing various aspects of it. In particular MBT's and AFV's were overly nerfed in early tested to the point those vehicles were next to useless.
They turned Artillery into Direct Fire mode Tank Destroyers. While the devs eventually take this out as devs cite the vehicles were not playing as intended, players cite that SPG's made MBT class redundant as the SPG's did a lot more damage, were faster and MBT's armour didn't matter as it could no longer deflect anything bar autocannons.
AFV's were beyond ridiculously underpowered with their autocannons more show pieces than of any use, unable to pen even the rear of vehicles.
ATGM's also became very inconsistent and often failed to fuse.
On top of this a lot of vehicles played very similarly and there was no real difference between most vehicles in game.
Regardless of this poor feedback players are outright screaming for content and a lot of content is locked behind Imbalance 2.0, including new vehicles, maps and features.
Devs go back to drawing boards slightly and push out a new version of Imbalance 2.0 for NA and EU PTS.
It's still just as bad, this time though players get to experience how shit it is rather than listening to feedback from Russians.
Everyone is understandably pissed at changes. MBTS for example are far too slow that if they get into bodies of water they cannot get back out.
All AFV's have to have ATGM's now which kills all diversity in the class as they may as well be TD's now. XM800T gets a retarded LAW launcher strapped to side which if you showed /k/ would cause an immense triggering the likes of which the board has never seen.
They also heavily change spotting mechanics, movement mechanics and damage mechanics when it wasn't needed.
For example shells get bonuses to damage based on how thick or thin the armour is. This results in situations where players do more damage for targeting the strongest parts of a Tank's armour instead of where it is weakest for maximum damage and overall removes any skill shots.
Light Tanks benefit from a lot of changes overall as they suddenly become absurdly overpowered, having the best view range, camo, gun handling, mobility and on top of that great firepower, rate of fire as well some magical front armour that is better at bouncing AP shells than thicker MBT armour.
Players also concerned about how changes will effect PvE but are ignored.
The PTS is such a disaster of disappointment that the devs delay the patch again and start testing yet another new build of the game and consistently attempt to build everything around their failed PvP mode.
However by time the new PTS comes out it has been 6 months since the last patch. Player numbers have shrunk drastically, not only is PvP dead in NA but it's all but dead in EU. Tiers 1-2 PvE also does not exist in NA meaning that new players are unable to play the game. When the new PTS launches there is not enough players to test it meaning that nothing is tested.
The Devs decide to turn Arty into a PvE Only vehicle as they don't know how to balance it and it is such a useless vehicle anyway.
During all this time the Devs outline a comprehensive compensation plan for players as a result of Balance 2.0 telling them not only what to expect but what they would receive. When 0.19 drops finally for the RU server in April, 6 months after the initial announced release date for the patch, players prepare accordingly.
A few weeks before the patch drops Devs add a new High Tier Premium Tank to the game which causes outrage as they can't add new vehicles but yet add new Premiums. It is then discovered this Tier 8 vehicle has the matchmaking of a Tier 5 vehicle. Devs quickly remove the vehicle from game but refuse to refund players who have paid for it. Players have to threaten with lawsuits before refunds are offered.

2017 – Imbalance 2.0 Finally Drops:
Cited as the patch that killed the game which sums up the tone really as everything that went wrong could.
Compensation was so fucked that the devs had to disable purchasing camo for credits as players were not compensated correctly. Nor was vehicle reputation adjusted properly, some players actually lost vehicle reputation.
While slated to introduce dozens of new vehicles, a lot of the vehicles were gap fillers, replacements or variants of vehicles they already had. In reality there was barely half a dozen real new vehicles in game added.
PvP Skirmish Mode was introduced and ended up shoving players into 1vs1 matches in PvP on full sized maps to alleviate the issue of not having enough players for PvP.
On the rare occasions that players do get proper PvP matches players discover a game breaking bug with spotting where players will be rendered in game at one place on the map but actually be completely somewhere else.
PvE AI bots went into super cheating mode to the point it made most players quit out of frustration. Bots got snapshot aiming with zero aim time perfectly striking turret rings with ungodly ATGM spam that no Tanks had effective countermeasures to due to the overnerf of APS, bots also were next to undetectable being able to spot players across the map yet players had to often be within 100 meters of bots to spot them sometimes even closer and credit earnings were nerfed considerably that players would routinely make negative credits trying to win the matches.
As a cherry on top vehicle balance was made considerably worse rather than better, with only a handful of vehicles in game worth playing at all while the rest were made either redundant or unplayable.

2017 – Path to 0.20:
Because of all the problems associated with 0.19 it was assumed that devs would focus immediately a patch addressing it's issues.
Instead devs focus their next patch on bringing out a new garage interface that is as close to World of Tank's without getting sued.
Chorus of screams from the forums saying this isn't what anyone wants goes ignored.
Devs also nerf loot boxes from matches, in terms of amount gained. Players that play insanely well are often never rewarded as drop rate is so low. This in turn nerfs heavily income.
Players demanding to know what new Tanks are coming, short answer is Slavshit, Slavshit and more Slavshit.

2017 – 0.20 Drops and beyond:
World of Tanks UI drops, players are understandably pissed as the old UI was clearer and better.
Player numbers are dropping drastically.
A “bug” is also noticed that if a player faces vehicles two Tiers higher, they will only get rewarded for a vehicle one Tier higher. This also goes into scoring which means literally a low Tier player can carry an entire match but because of their Tier will have less core and reward than someone who sat AFK in a High Tier vehicle.
Devs decide that next hotfix they will introduce +/- 5 Tier matchmaking
When the hotfix drops the reward bug for facing a High Tier with a Low Tier is now slated as a feature which pisses off players even more. Players often refuse to drop solo in PvE cause of this aspect as they will face much Higher Tiered bots that are close to impossible for most of their vehicles to deal with and get no reward for doing so. The same issues happen with PvP as although 15vs15's are now common again, players are angry that Tier 1's are facing Tier 6's and getting no reward and no place on the scoreboard for playing well.
Players now waiting for new vehicles get told that a new Czech and Polish line is coming. It turns out there is only 6 vehicles after being promised a full line. Devs cite that Obsidian models were so broken and incomplete they had to redo them from scratch meaning that literally the vast majority of 2016 was a completely wasted year.

And that takes us up to where the game is now. New Devs destroyed the successful PvE and Global Ops mode to focus on propping up their failed PvP mode that nobody wanted to play. Continue to make the game closer each patch to World of Tanks and shove out grab deal after grab deal while never focusing on anything the community actually wants or needs.