World of Tanks Mark 2

[Jub]

That's not exactly true anymore now that everybody with a derp is chucking permium rounds that have the same (or higher) pen than AP rounds they could be tossing.

[xthetenth]

So, y'know, next time you get Sudden Explosive Death Syndrome, remember that next time the same guy is crying because he can't do anything.

It's annoying to be one hit, but it's equally annoying to get in really close, eat a pair of hits, and watch your shot sail high and wide.

This is the real reason for my objection for them. They're annoying for both sides. Everyone remembers when the things bite them no matter which side of the muzzle they're on. I have much less of a problem with the huge damage high tier guns because they aren't oneshots, they're more reliable and lower damage in proportion to HP. Those make the battle take long enough that being inaccurate could spread out over time.

[Vendetta]

That's not exactly true anymore now that everybody with a derp is chucking permium rounds that have the same (or higher) pen than AP rounds they could be tossing.

There's a perception that that's the case, but I very much doubt it really happens as much as people think it does.

It's another symptom of what Stark was talking about, where people look for excuses when they get blowed up because it's easier to accept than thinking that they made a mistake, and generally when you blow up in World of Tanks it's because you made a mistake. Now, sometimes you made the mistake quite a long way back, running off to a part of the map your tank shouldn't have been in because it's not where it's particular combination of weapons, armour, soft stats, etc. work well. In those cases it's hard to associate the mistake with the blowing up like it is "I tried to solo a Maus in an AMX-12t and it went poorly"*, but you still made a mistake and that's still why you exploded.

Generally, the only times when you die and it's not your fault are when the rest of your team suck all the balls (since the matchmaking doesn't account for player skill, just tank weighting) and your team evaporates, at which point nothing you can do is going to save you.

So no, don't think that premium shells are a thing, they're not really, they're just an excuse.


* You can actually damage the Maus with the 75mm SA50's standard AP rounds, you just have to be behind it and shoot the pimple in the centre rear of the turret. At which point it will turn around and squash you like the insignificant bug you are.

[Jub]

That's not exactly true anymore now that everybody with a derp is chucking permium rounds that have the same (or higher) pen than AP rounds they could be tossing.

There's a perception that that's the case, but I very much doubt it really happens as much as people think it does.

It's another symptom of what Stark was talking about, where people look for excuses when they get blowed up because it's easier to accept than thinking that they made a mistake, and generally when you blow up in World of Tanks it's because you made a mistake. Now, sometimes you made the mistake quite a long way back, running off to a part of the map your tank shouldn't have been in because it's not where it's particular combination of weapons, armour, soft stats, etc. work well. In those cases it's hard to associate the mistake with the blowing up like it is "I tried to solo a Maus in an AMX-12t and it went poorly"*, but you still made a mistake and that's still why you exploded.

Generally, the only times when you die and it's not your fault are when the rest of your team suck all the balls (since the matchmaking doesn't account for player skill, just tank weighting) and your team evaporates, at which point nothing you can do is going to save you.

So no, don't think that premium shells are a thing, they're not really, they're just an excuse.


* You can actually damage the Maus with the 75mm SA50's standard AP rounds, you just have to be behind it and shoot the pimple in the centre rear of the turret. At which point it will turn around and squash you like the insignificant bug you are.

For me I run 10 premium rounds in all of my HE throwing tanks. It makes a huge difference to what I can hurt head on versus having to wait that few extra seconds to get to a flank. There are targets that I'll switch to normal rounds for, but for the most part I'm throwing gold with my 105's. I don't tend to do this as much in my AP armed tanks because they're normally accurate enough that I can just pick weakspots.

[ryacko]

No. At least counterstrike had smoke.
Somehow wargaming can't add smoke grenades to the WoT.

Due to how game mechanics are structured right now, all they would really do is reveal your general position to enemy artillery and TDs to have free reign sniping into your cloud, even if they can't technically detect your tank.

Once you do get detected though, your cloud is useless, since it highlights enemy tanks when your gun has a clear shot to them.

The camo effects have influence, even if there is a forest in the middle between you and enemy.
So if you fire smoke 100 meters away from your position, with the mechanics, it will still conceal you, as long as it is between you and the enemy.

[Imperial528]

That is true, but the pubbies won't realize that.
Now, I like Bean's point about smoke shells. Long-range deployable smoke would be very useful. The final thing for me though, if they do implement smoke, is to make particle effects much less taxing memory wise. I had to disable track effects, and wish I could disable engine smog, since it causes a noticeable performance drop on my laptop.

One feature I would like to see implemented, as an arty player, is to change the sniper view of arty to one that takes into account the fog of war. Because I honestly hate it when I see trees falling and buildings breaking when none of my team can even see the area. It's just not right.

[Darth Wong]

That's not exactly true anymore now that everybody with a derp is chucking permium rounds that have the same (or higher) pen than AP rounds they could be tossing.

There's a perception that that's the case, but I very much doubt it really happens as much as people think it does.

It's another symptom of what Stark was talking about, where people look for excuses when they get blowed up because it's easier to accept than thinking that they made a mistake, and generally when you blow up in World of Tanks it's because you made a mistake. Now, sometimes you made the mistake quite a long way back, running off to a part of the map your tank shouldn't have been in because it's not where it's particular combination of weapons, armour, soft stats, etc. work well. In those cases it's hard to associate the mistake with the blowing up like it is "I tried to solo a Maus in an AMX-12t and it went poorly"*, but you still made a mistake and that's still why you exploded.

I have to agree that there's a lot of confirmation bias in the way people think they see gold everywhere since WG started allowing people to purchase gold shells with in-game credits.

Having said that, there is also the phenomenon of people jumping on bandwagons, and one of those bandwagons right now is M4 Shermans and Panzer IVs loading up mini-derp guns with HEAT rounds and zooming around one-shotting people. They should really do something about this fad; while the KV-2's derp gun is balanced by the tank's many serious shortcomings in mobility and visibility, the same is not true at all for the fast-moving Sherman and Panzer IV. HEAT rounds on low-tier mini-derp guns are powerful enough to unbalance games where they are in use.

[Simon_Jester]

Do you think upping the shell cost would do the job?

The real trick here is simply making sure that use of premium ammo isn't profitable in credits.

[Darth Wong]

Yeah, maybe they need to adjust gold shell cost based on how much impact it has at its tier. Right now, gold shell costs seem to be based solely on the shell diameter.

[Rekkon]

The ASAP #6 part 2 video said premium shell usage at tier 8 went from 0.1-0.3 to 0.5-0.7 shells per tank per battle after they let people buy them for credits. Tier 10 went from 0.3-0.4 to 0.6-0.7.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

The 105 guns are fairly comparable to the KV-1's 122 (mildly less damage, somewhat shorter reload time), but IIRC they cost a lot less: 2800 vs 4000 or something like that. I carry a couple HEAT in my KV-1 for emergencies, but if I use two or more in a round I'm easily looking at the possibility of going into the red even with tier 5 being great at making money. The higher risk of playing a medium probably makes it a lot more tempting to fire HEAT, but maybe if the costs were kept in line across the tier it might be a little more equalised.

Or do people also have issues with KV-1 HEAT use? It's hard for me to tell coming from the other side.

[PainRack]

Man..... I think I'm starting to learn how to play the Lee. Instead of playing it as a pure TD role, I'm using it as a mobile AT gun. Outside of the normal outflanking I do in my TD, I can actually roll up and down to play off shots, although the accuracy is low, the role is to distract the enemy tankers so that my allies can get their shots in.

Now, my only challenge is to prevent other players from ramming me, so that my actual gun sight can lay down accurate fire....... Dolts. Its hard enough playing without a turret as it is and the hiding skills of the Lee is inferior. Especially since I'm not going to invest in a camo net for it. Hell, I'm reluctant to invest in a gun rammer for a tank I'm playing just to advance to the sherman.

[PainRack]

A 26% win rate should be nearly impossible unless you got very unlucky on a short streak of games...

Try a long streak of games. Well, not unlucky all of the time though. I still learning how to play the tank after 36 long battles........ All of the wins in the Lee come about due to efforts by the team.

The M3 tank is just... disingenous enough that I can't play it like a TD, and I can't play it like a Medium tank, I'm reading the advice here and on other forums and I'm 'trying' to apply it with miminal success.

Yeah, the M3 is a bizarre little (read: giant) machine. The thing to remember is that if you only poke your sponson out from behind a wall, there isn't much that can hurt you - positioning is even more important than with a real TD.

I really have no idea how to do that. Every time I try, I get into such a position where I'm outflanked by the enemy......Ah well... more learning to do......

I even tried some of the sweet spots that recommended on some maps, but I can't seem to aim successfully. Or if I do get my shots off, I find that I'm actually exposing too much of my front to the enemy.......

[Broken]

One of the reasons the mid-tier heat seems to be such a problem is that, in general, the ones doing it are older players who already have lowes or Type 59's and are now either grinding up a new tree or just want to mess around with pimped out tanks. So losing 25k silver for a good, fun match is certainly not a big deal, especially when your saving for a 3.5 million tier 9 tank or something of the like.

[ryacko]

Yeah, maybe they need to adjust gold shell cost based on how much impact it has at its tier. Right now, gold shell costs seem to be based solely on the shell diameter.

Actually it's based on apparently the tier of the gun, making low rate of fire guns quite cheap.

In my opinion, the gold to credits exchange rate is undervalued, for an obvious reason: to prevent people from buying their way to top tier tanks (unless they want to spend $100).
Problem is, they are creating a mechanic on top of a purposefully unbalanced mechanic which slightly breaks the game, and renders guns capable of very high rates of fire unable to use premium shells.
IMHO, they should restructure premium shell costs to be a function of amount of damage dealt.

I already told them this once. This reminds me to tell them this again.

[Skywalker_T-65]

The only prem shells I've bought are 5 for my 3601's L/70 since I'll often end up in battles where I need the extra punch/pen that premium (calling it gold doesn't fit anymore ) shells provide. That being said, I've noticed that even the relatively cheap shells there would quickly break my bank. 2k credits for one shell? On something other than high-tier arty? Yeah...5 is about the most I can afford.

Gets worse the higher I go...I think the 107 on my T-150 is something like 10k per shell (though I would have to check when I get out of class later).

[Jub]

I'm willing to trade credits for experience on my Sherman variants because of just how good the premium rounds make that 105. I doubt I could do this if I didn't have a T34 to print me money.

[Nephtys]

Usually, Gold Rounds aren't actually a big deal. Mediums and Lights for the most part are going to be penned by an equal (or sub tier) gun nearly every time, so gold pen is overkill.
Against Heavies at Tier 6-8, Gold Rounds may make a difference as the guns they face are generally on the cusp of penetration, but not reliably so.
Against most heavies at 8-10, a Gold Round isn't nearly as important as accurate fire placement. You still aren't getting through a T30 Mantlet with gold, nor a Maus glacis.

The only time it's really messed up are with those low tier 105 derps. Because suddenly the gun that is designed to punish tanks with paper armor and do a little damage to more heavy armored vehicles, is capable of punching frontally through tier 7 and 8 heavies for damage equivilent to a Tier 7/8 Heavy's gun. Which also equates to one-shot of every tank Tier 4 or lower, and 2-shot of every tank Tier 6 or lower.

[Stark]

What exactly about that is unfair? The ingame stats say it happens, there's an ingame system that lets you do it, etc. That's the game. It's not a tank simulator where you can complain it's not TEH REALIZM, it's a F2P shooter. If something works and isn't an exploit (and maybe even if it is), what's the problem? Does it just rub you the wrong way? Obviously if it devalues the grindtime for high end stuff the devs might care, but otherwise it's just like complaining about anything else in any multiplayer game being 'cheap' or a 'noob cannon' or 'cheesy'. People shouldn't do that thing that is effective/easy/successful because .... ?

Hate to say this but WoT has NEVER been balanced. Why is this such a common issue people take with the game? Is it something you learn from the forums?

[xthetenth]

WoT's generally been edging towards better balance although the list of competitive tanks has always been shifted due to a skewed metagame in competitive play, but HEAT on tier 5 mediums is the sort of imbalance I remember from the good old days of lololol medium tanks can't be hit outside 15 meters because shit netcode. It's a serious abberation that could really stand to get fixed, because a lot of the time actually knowing how to drive the damn thing is enough to get wins in an "underpowered" tank because it's at least close. Against a HEAT chucking medium ha ha ha fuck you.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Generally speaking, the only tank I have to worry about mini-derp carrying Shermans/PzIV's is my Crusader. If they get close enough to take down my 3601 or T-150 I'm doing something REALLY wrong

[Nephtys]

What exactly about that is unfair? The ingame stats say it happens, there's an ingame system that lets you do it, etc. That's the game. It's not a tank simulator where you can complain it's not TEH REALIZM, it's a F2P shooter. If something works and isn't an exploit (and maybe even if it is), what's the problem? Does it just rub you the wrong way? Obviously if it devalues the grindtime for high end stuff the devs might care, but otherwise it's just like complaining about anything else in any multiplayer game being 'cheap' or a 'noob cannon' or 'cheesy'. People shouldn't do that thing that is effective/easy/successful because .... ?

Hate to say this but WoT has NEVER been balanced. Why is this such a common issue people take with the game? Is it something you learn from the forums?

Because nobody cared to do it before, due to what a stupid waste of gold to have an M4 HEAT Derp Game. It cost something like a buck a game, back when. So it effectively never happened.

Now, it's actually rather trivial. You don't even lose money on a decent game slinging HEAT, and that tank is so way more powerful than everything else of it's tier, that it's rather stupid? And seriously Stark, nobody said shit about realism. It's about this very simple concept that being far better than every other vehicle that you are supposed to be equal to is stupid. It's not even a small imbalance, it's 'far fucking better'.

Obviously you should use whatever's effective. But it's up to WG to nerf the shit out of this, since it's way too effective.

@Skywalker: A Crusader's going to be wrecked without gold rounds. It's in that 'paper' category, and that's fine. But the M4 doesn't need to be close to do horrific damage. The Derp Howitzer's not THAT inaccurate to miss a slow moving T-150 or most 3601 drivers, and doesn't lose any potency at range.

[Stark]

So if its a known 'balance issue' with a competitive game that isn't fixed, how is it unacceptable to do it? Heaps of things about the game distort the playing field. The tier system is hardly a gem of perfection, so does this just jump out because it requires so little grinding? If it really has that much of an impact, wouldn't the devs act to protect their model?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Odd...I don't think I've ever had problems with Derped Shermans/PzIV's before...at least not in the 3601 or T-150. Maybe I've just been getting really lucky?

[Stark]

MP balance issues are always about statistics and confirmation bias. Even when something is hugely OP and a major problem, you might never personally see it (and if it doesn't happen to you it's often difficult to know what it was). That's why complaints about balance are often driven more by community consensus than anything else - everyone says the ASW is cheap so it must be cheap, I saw a guy using it once and he won ergo its overpowered, etc.