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So, World of Tanks, I play it, here's some criticism.

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
So the model they have set up right now is ingenious really, you want to advance, spend hours grinding or pay money. And in those hours of grinding, how about sending you against decent to slightly OP pay tanks, the first really obvious one is the Churchill, whose notable feature is that it has 100mm thicker armor on the front than the KV. Oh but it has a worse gun, but you require a fully upgraded KV(Long Barrel, a cumilative 20000 experience points spent exclusively on that and the turret required to run it(That's about 4 days of grinding for 4 hours)), or a lucky shot with a TD(Haven't checked but I think the Wolverine and the Stug can pen it, but I can't recall) to pen it. Then as you raise in tier, the next obvious one will be the Type 59, which is a high tier medium tank that is somehow nearly invulnerable to bullets of a lower tier than 7, and has been raised from t7 to t8, and the fans consider it a t9, considering the real life tank is a variant of the russian t9 medium. So while you are sitting here grinding to your hearts content, you are being bombarded with the subtle message, you could be better if you'd just pay.

The game itself is insanely addictive, quickly drop in get killed drop out, maybe talk a little smack. But when you are doing like I've just done, and ground up to another tank from a very weak tank(A-20 to T-34) it often feels soul crushingly depressing because the match maker seems oriented at either motivating you to pay, or forcing you off the gravy train at t5 and t4. It's all fine and dandy at first, even t3s are mostly fine, but at t4 and above, you seem to get sent up against t8s a hell of a lot. Coincidentally t8s is their pay tank grade for certain types. Most pay tanks seem to be t3, t5 and t8. So again it's subtle poking, PAY FOR THIS GAME. I did, I bought the box I enjoy the core gameplay so much. You wanna know what I purchased with my gold from that, TANK SLOTS. Because I had run out, and foresaw myself playing the game a lot more. And I have, I've taken the french lines up to at least t3, and the Russian lines up to t5(The grind for the t-50-2(They recently lowered this, much to my chagrin, I ground up the 75k experience it was at one point) was horrible but I think arty grind was the worst.)

The game actively discourages you from playing specialized roles, with imposed grinds on SPGs(Artillery) and TD's to the point of ridiculousness. For instance if I want to get a t6 arty, I would literally have to play 200 matches or more on my KV or my Arty(That's assuming a modest(sarcasm) sum of 500 xp per match, in practice that's about double what you will get from the average match). And you'll be doing this while being faced with opponents like t9s, or the time we got sent against 6 t10s in our t4s and t5s with about 2 t8s on our side.

I've come to the conclusion now, that while I have a lot of fun playing this game. It's an ultimately pointless endeavor because people will expend none of the effort you did to get to certain ranks, and will then play completely cock in ass retarded, making the game all the more not enjoyable for those of us who did expend the effort. Still the core gameplay mechanic and systems are insanely addictive, and this is a game worth trying out for the fact that often times, those Churchills will play so retarded because they haven't grasped basic principles like say, penetration and armor sloping, and why when you are fighting someone you always want your turret facing towards them and your front towards them as well, at a slight angle but not such that you expose your sides. Or the little touches you learned from playing certain maps, over and over. Like how certain areas are instant death to go into from either side of the field, certain places are unassailable by certain sides if a decent defense is mustered. And that is when you are sitting in your TD and you snipe that person from halfway across the map and smile because you know you've ruined that particular paying entities day. And it's moments like those that make you enjoy playing. It's moments like being in your KV with your long barrel, and killing 8 people that match, being the last person left alive and winning the match with 10 hitpoints left on your KV. Knowing you had just faced down 3 churchills, 3 stugs, and 2 other kvs and come out on top of the pile. Moments that make you feel LIKE A MAN DOING MANLY THINGS IN MANLY WAYS. It's essentially a form of PvP similar to EVE where superior ship does tend to give and advantage but you can still have a kill with a LOL Tracktor that is you kill stealing everyones kills because you were exploiting a flaw in the hit detection that states that the last damage in is the shot that takes the kill and for a short while at the moment of death everyone had 0/0/0 armor. Or essentially, being in an Iteron 5 and taking down a Megathron,

Also I do recommend that you watch that video, that is a cargo ship with roughly nothing for armor taking on one of the heaviest PvP ships in the game. And it's also why you never fit a ship PURE BUFFER in high sec when you have no logistics ships.
 

FaChoi

Educated
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
533
Location
ciudad subterranean los andes
Special offers man, special offers.
It helps with the grind so much, speaking of which thanks for making me check cause there is a special offer this weekend, extra XP and cheaper slots/crews. Keep an eye out for offer codes too, think I've bagged 1000 free gold and a few days of free premium.

Agree that wallet warriors suck and the arty grind is a bit much, 100 battles in a T5 american arty and need another 75000 points for T6.

Studying the tech list carefully helps when deciding how to get the tank you want(personally I abandoned the A-20 route for high tier mediums)
 
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,160
Yeah premium tanks are a bit op. Facing type 59 in my t-44 (both are tier 8 mediums so in theory should be balanced) can be pretty depressing. Well sure, most of the time they are driven by retards exposing sides and even rear, also shooting at full speed. However if you face competent player its futile, from front you can't do shit. Only chance to do anything is to hit hatch at top of the turret which relies too much on dumb luck and lower glacis but you still need right angle to pen there so often it isn't an option. At the same time he has no problems penetrating your armor.

In other news I'll be getting free tier 8 heavy premium in next patch, had to grind for it though.
 

Elim

Augur
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
330
Project: Eternity
Never had any problems with the premium tanks. But the new french tanks on the other hand...I feel my T9 medium is obsolete now.

I'm on the T34 grind, too. Still need 180k EP for it, I hope i can do it.
 

Elim

Augur
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
330
Project: Eternity
T34 (the american T9 heavy), it can be a wreck or elite, does not matter.
The tank will be removed from the tree, replaced by a better tank. If you have it in the garage you will get the T34 as a premium tank.
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
Those French tanks look insane (and not in the good way). Tier 7 lights with weapons that shoot 1.67 rounds per minute?
 

Father Walker

Potato Ranger
Joined
Apr 13, 2011
Messages
1,282
So, you play WoT bros? One day I'll find you and shoot you with my derp gun.
 

Ion Prothon II

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
Messages
1,011
Location
Ołobok Zdrój
Anyone else got some impression the game mechanics is getting more and more screwed with every new version? Last summer I've got some fun with fully upgraded KV1S and Stug3 (no premium stuff). Now on version few numbers higher I can't frag anything, lol. It's like they underpowered lolcannons while riddiculously overpowering vehicles like Type 59. I don't play this shit anyway, but it's a bit sad to see how game becomes an example of free2play pay4fun.
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,523
They changed some armour mechanic back in 7.0-7.1 but it is still very much possible to penetrate other tanks. I'm not sure if you used the best 7.5cm on Stug3 but I have a few Top Gun medals with it. Your impression may also be influenced by the fact they did nerfed the HE damage, and the 10.5cm on Stug is really bad, at least for me. But I saw today that Derp on KV can still take like 800hp from M6 so no need to be concerned. And KV is still way OP for its tier, thats why they gonna split it into two different tanks.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
Patron
Joined
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Messages
20,317
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DiNMRK
Played it a while back but stopped when my StuGIII regularly got matched up against Tier 7-8's and I felt sadface at trying to grind past my JagdIV.
 

Father Walker

Potato Ranger
Joined
Apr 13, 2011
Messages
1,282
There are lots of derp in this game, but it's loads of fun if you take it easy. I'm so zen about WoT at this point, that even uber-fucked matchups can't remove the enjoyment from the game for me. Switching between vehicles is also important. If I get bad streak with one vehicle, I just pick one of my favorites (i.e. T-34 or T-28) and move on.

Btw, I'd happily join forces with some other bros also playing on EU servers.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
15,463
Location
Insert clever insult here
For some reason I get really bad connections to the WoT servers. I've tried to grind my arty - I'm at T3 now, I think - but it's so annoying to play when my ping is regularly at 999.
 

fizzelopeguss

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
967
Location
Equality Street.
I get it sometimes as well, pretty sure the server is getting hammered into the ground. French cunts at wargaming paris need to stop chewing frogs legs and install another server node.
 

Gregz

Arcane
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
8,976
Location
The Desert Wasteland
So the model they have set up right now is ingenious really...

If you choose play-for-free, and just grind, do you get skilled enough to offset the advantages of the 'paid for' tanks?

Like, how counter-strike pros can easily scalp casual players? Or is it just a simple arithmetic of firepower vs. armor? (i.e. $$$ > skill)
 

fizzelopeguss

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
967
Location
Equality Street.
Paid tanks aren't any better stats wise, they have a higher credit earning co-efficient.

And it's very much an easy to play, hard to master sort of game.
 

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
So the model they have set up right now is ingenious really...

If you choose play-for-free, and just grind, do you get skilled enough to offset the advantages of the 'paid for' tanks?

Like, how counter-strike pros can easily scalp casual players? Or is it just a simple arithmetic of firepower vs. armor? (i.e. $$$ > skill)
Paid tanks aren't any better stats wise, they have a higher credit earning co-efficient.

And it's very much an easy to play, hard to master sort of game.
Actually they are better in some ways worse in others. Take the Churchill for example with a skilled pilot in a t5 match, a Churchill is unassailable from the front, there is practically no gun that will pen from the front, however, its gun is shit. Type 59 is really the only one that I can think of that is absolutely better than it's tier and that's because it's technically a reflavor of a t9 tank, the T-54, the Russian t9 medium. It's a t9 that is ranked as a t8. Nothing under t7 has a chance to hurt it, unless you get a ludicrously lucky hit.

More than that the sheer presence of gold ammo, makes the game pay to win, given that gold ammo is twice the pen of armor penetrating rounds. It can turn t3 tanks into things that can reasonably take on t5s and t6s.
 

Gregz

Arcane
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
8,976
Location
The Desert Wasteland
More than that the sheer presence of gold ammo, makes the game pay to win, given that gold ammo is twice the pen of armor penetrating rounds. It can turn t3 tanks into things that can reasonably take on t5s and t6s.

I was OK with everything but this part, sounds very :decline:...ah I'll probably try it anyway, but $ = 2 x power ammo sounds horrible.
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,523
So the model they have set up right now is ingenious really...

If you choose play-for-free, and just grind, do you get skilled enough to offset the advantages of the 'paid for' tanks?

Like, how counter-strike pros can easily scalp casual players? Or is it just a simple arithmetic of firepower vs. armor? (i.e. $$$ > skill)
Paid tanks aren't any better stats wise, they have a higher credit earning co-efficient.

And it's very much an easy to play, hard to master sort of game.
Actually they are better in some ways worse in others. Take the Churchill for example with a skilled pilot in a t5 match, a Churchill is unassailable from the front, there is practically no gun that will pen from the front, however, its gun is shit. Type 59 is really the only one that I can think of that is absolutely better than it's tier and that's because it's technically a reflavor of a t9 tank, the T-54, the Russian t9 medium. It's a t9 that is ranked as a t8. Nothing under t7 has a chance to hurt it, unless you get a ludicrously lucky hit.

More than that the sheer presence of gold ammo, makes the game pay to win, given that gold ammo is twice the pen of armor penetrating rounds. It can turn t3 tanks into things that can reasonably take on t5s and t6s.

Unless the Churchill is matched with the Tier 5 rapist commonly known as KV with 107mm.

Type 59 has a very weird history in WoT. It is quite nice, mobile with a very dingy turret but the biggest problem with them was the special matchmaking it used to get two updates ago. Type then was set to never meet with the highest tier tanks, only its own tier and one battle tier lower, and that what led to sittuations when there were 6-7 types on each side which was a complete nightmare for everyone else. But since the matchmaking changes for it and the removal from the store, the type 59 problem is mostly under control.

As for the gold rounds, for one they dont have twice the penetration, just like 50% more, for example Stug III best gun, normal AP - 138mm, Gold AP - 194mm or 8.8cm on VK36 Normal AP - 132mm and Gold AP - 172mm. But more to the point, nearly nobody uses them in random battles because that would be a waste of money. They are used in Companies and mostly on Clan Wars where it matters and where you get gold daily so you can buy more gold rounds.

And we need to remember that it is only more penetration, not damage. The damage of Normal AP and Gold AP are the same, so gold rounds will only let you shot without as precise aiming as is needed with normal AP in many cases.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
Patron
Joined
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DiNMRK
Also, my experience from just before I stopped playing with my JagdIV was that without gold rounds, I'd need really lucky or rear shots to reliably penetrate about 75% of the tanks I was being matched up against. With gold rounds, I could reliably penetrate ~60-70% of all my opponents armor. So yeah, you don't need gold rounds unless you really want to win. :smug:
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,523
The problem is in the JagdIV, it has a gun with 132mm penetration, just like VK36 but it is a TD so JagdIV gets a higher mathmaking value and often fights with VIII-IX tiers which are really hard to penetrate for him. Believe me, I'm grinding it now and its a pain in the ass. And thats quite universal opinion on JagdIV everywhere.

For example. Best gun on Russian tier 6 TD has 175mm penetration, on american its 160mm penetration and JagdIV has only 132mm. Yes, we can talk about accuracy and reload time but ultimately you need to penetrate to deal damage. And the supposed great accuracy of german tanks is wasted as most maps are just to small to make it any kind of advantage.

If somebody wants a completly stress free game when he doesnt need to worry about credits ect. Just play at the 5-6 tier levels. At tier 5 it is virtually impossible to not earn some credits in every battle, you would have to waste all your rounds not hitting anybody, get destroyed and lose the battle to not earn some credits.

The real problem of WoT is its unequal approach to certain nations vehicles. And I mean that some russian tanks are just plain better than comparable tanks of any other nation.
 

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
So here's the fun thing about the churchill, Note I have a KV with the 107, it has an average pen with a 100% skilled crew of 167 or there abouts, the churchill has a front armor of 175. Which means for the average shot, I will not penetrate the front of the Churchill, unless strangely if I hit it on the turret, where it has an armor of 88.

Something else to note about the 107, it has SHITTY ACCURACY. So at a decent ranged engagement, you aren't going to be hitting much. Granted the gun on the Chuchill is not much better.

Also gold ammo does in fact get used in random matches, you wanna know why I know this, I went into a match 5 minutes ago with my KV, and a t46(a tier 3 light tank) ran up, destroyed my turret, and proceeded to plink away at my front until I died. The only way he could have done this is with gold ammo.
 

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
The problem is in the JagdIV, it has a gun with 132mm penetration, just like VK36 but it is a TD so JagdIV gets a higher mathmaking value and often fights with VIII-IX tiers which are really hard to penetrate for him. Believe me, I'm grinding it now and its a pain in the ass. And thats quite universal opinion on JagdIV everywhere.

If somebody wants a completly stress free game when he doesnt need to worry about credits ect. Just play at the 5-6 tier levels. At tier 5 it is virtually impossible to not earn some credits in every battle, you would have to waste all your rounds not hitting anybody, get destroyed and lose the battle to not earn some credits.

The real problem of WoT is its unequal approach to certain nations vehicles. And I mean that some russian tanks are just plain better than comparable tanks of any other nation.
Just the heavies mate, our medium line sucks, and our TDs are poorly armored with comparably inaccurate guns, I cannot speak for SPGs because well, I don't do the artillery.
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,523
So here's the fun thing about the churchill, Note I have a KV with the 107, it has an average pen with a 100% skilled crew of 167 or there abouts, the churchill has a front armor of 175. Which means for the average shot, I will not penetrate the front of the Churchill, unless strangely if I hit it on the turret, where it has an armor of 88.

Something else to note about the 107, it has SHITTY ACCURACY. So at a decent ranged engagement, you aren't going to be hitting much. Granted the gun on the Chuchill is not much better.

Also gold ammo does in fact get used in random matches, you wanna know why I know this, I went into a match 5 minutes ago with my KV, and a t46(a tier 3 light tank) ran up, destroyed my turret, and proceeded to plink away at my front until I died. The only way he could have done this is with gold ammo.


Churchill has 175 mm front armor? Damn, never noticed that. But in that case, it starts to look fun, especially with the fixed mathmaking it got last patch.

As for the gold ammo. You know you should be the one laughing your ass off, because you probably got a profit anyway and that guy used a real money that could be spent on booze and hookers just to kill you in a video game :D

And I may be a bit biased because I play mostly german tanks, and when I meet the magical IS 4 its always at close range and my accuracy wont help me against his alpha damage. Not to mention the sides that can make any shot disappear.
 

fizzelopeguss

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
967
Location
Equality Street.
So here's the fun thing about the churchill, Note I have a KV with the 107, it has an average pen with a 100% skilled crew of 167 or there abouts, the churchill has a front armor of 175. Which means for the average shot, I will not penetrate the front of the Churchill, unless strangely if I hit it on the turret, where it has an armor of 88.

Something else to note about the 107, it has SHITTY ACCURACY. So at a decent ranged engagement, you aren't going to be hitting much. Granted the gun on the Chuchill is not much better.

Also gold ammo does in fact get used in random matches, you wanna know why I know this, I went into a match 5 minutes ago with my KV, and a t46(a tier 3 light tank) ran up, destroyed my turret, and proceeded to plink away at my front until I died. The only way he could have done this is with gold ammo.

yup, the flat front of the churchills turret is a ginormous weakspot. When i'm in a church v church battle i always go for the other guys turret, guaranteed pen and i'll prolly take out his gunner. This is another thing with the game, tier 8/9/10 players are always in the lower tiers, either grinding new tanks or farming credits. i'll say flat out...we're better than the newer players. It's not gold, it's not the tanks...it IS probably that the other guy is using a module, training a crew to 75% over his 50 and popping consumables. Tier 7 is a wake up call for a lot of players, weakspot aiming and using the parts of the map that suit your tank is a must.

Is4 is a bullshit tank though, good move putting it in tier 10 next patch.
 

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