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Hello all.

So having enjoyed World of Warships fairly well thus far, I thought I'd take a look at its older brother.

It's *still* updating (apparently my connection sucks today) but I managed to run through the tutorial -- not too bad although light on advanced concepts, also didn't teach you how to snap in and out of first-person view unless I missed that. Thanks to my shitty connection, my first game was over almost before I started-- loooooooooong load time, the game loads for 15 seconds, I move the tank a tiny bit, and then it freezes. When it comes back up, the game is over and we won, I got some XP. Yay? Was locked in sniper view when the game loaded and couldn't figure out how to snap back out. *sigh* So I'm gonna finish loading the game so I can play some PvE to get my land-legs...

Tips? Suggestions? Etc? I'm only in the T1 American light tank thus far, probably gonna use some of the free XP I got for taking the tutorial to hop up to the T2 American medium today...

So far as I know (could be completely wrong) WoT doesn't have a PvE mode. However, if you take a bit of time to learn the basics of gun handling and the more fine stuff like armour angling and weak spots, the players you meet at Tier 1 and 2 are not much better than AIs.

The must-have resources, IMO:
http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Tanks -- every tank's pros, cons, play style and suggested research progression. Also things like shell mechanics and cover etc.

http://www.modxvm.com/en/ -- people have mixed opinions on XVM; it shows you statistically how good or bad each player is, plus added detail to the mini-map like how far your view range extends to. At low tiers, it's useful to see which players are ultra-high-skill seal clubbers to avoid. They can really ruin games.

Starting out tips - for nations you expect to play in, keep the Tier 1 tanks after you unlock everything and turn on "accelerate crew training". It takes time to train them but having crews with active Skills and Perks gives you a HUGE edge higher up.

I play as Lord_Reaver on the NA East server; I'd be happy to play some platoon games though I'm not sure I can get voice chat working reliably.

It's also worth noting that the differences between each country are a lot more pronounced in WoT, if only because of the greater variety. Unfortunately it's been so long since I've played I'm foggy on the details.

I do know that Soviet heavies tend towards big guns (though inaccurate), big armor, and slow speed. However, that armor really is useful I think. My favorite tanks were the T-150 and ST-1 for good reason.

Well, I finally managed to survive a game, lol... Time to upgrade! Pz.Kpfw 2, here I come, since that's how I get to the German mediums apparently...

Skywalker_T-65 wrote:It's also worth noting that the differences between each country are a lot more pronounced in WoT, if only because of the greater variety. Unfortunately it's been so long since I've played I'm foggy on the details.

I do know that Soviet heavies tend towards big guns (though inaccurate), big armor, and slow speed. However, that armor really is useful I think. My favorite tanks were the T-150 and ST-1 for good reason.

There's also a lot more role mutation over tiers. Up to the Black Prince (VII) for example the British heavies are appallingly slow with huge armour and fast, accurate but very weak guns. But the Caernarvon and Conqueror are a sudden total change to hill-humpers with great turrets but paper hulls.

That too.

I think my favorite example- it's possible there are worse offenders, but this is my experience -are the French light tanks though. Go from the slow as dirt AMX-40, to the tiny and speedy ELC AMX, to the autoloading AMX-12t.

Going from the Alecto to the AT2 and then from the Tortoise to the Death Star FV215b 183 also comes to mind.

I've been putting a lot of hours on my AMX CDC recently, and working towards the Chinese heavy tanks. I know the CDC is crazy expensive but it's by far my favourite tank in the game already. Instead of getting in and driving it I feel like I just get in and wear it.

Haven't played in quite some time myself. I think I was still grinding the ST-1/Tiger I at the time though.

Just a hassle to try since it's either dig out my old laptop or wait till I go home since trying to update Wargaming games here kills my wifi for some reason or another- it's the reason I'm not playing Warships right now either.

The in-game tutorial is garbage, and doesn't tell you anything at all about the vision mechanics, which for the moment are still king for this game (the recent trend is an increase in brawling corridors where vision isn't important). So read up on how spotting and camo work on at least the wiki so that you can avoid unnecessary aggravation over getting blasted by invisible tanks.

New players are now a bit shielded from seal clubbers playing low tiers, so that should make the game a bit better. If you haven't done so, go into settings and make sure the map shows the last known position of enemy tanks. (I think default is that you see them when you press "alt".) Also, increase the map size a little bit and make sure to use it to evaluate the situation. I have the feeling that many players totally ignore the map.

Good hunting.

New players are now a bit shielded from seal clubbers playing low tiers, so that should make the game a bit better.

Wasn't aware of that change. Last time I played Tier I for a lark I still ran into blurples/unicorns - what did they do fix that (much welcome)?

The Infidel wrote:If you haven't done so, go into settings and make sure the map shows the last known position of enemy tanks. (I think default is that you see them when you press "alt".) Also, increase the map size a little bit and make sure to use it to evaluate the situation. I have the feeling that many players totally ignore the map.

Good hunting.

The xvm version actually goes better, showing your current view range, max view range, and hard limit of render distance on the minimap. It can be really invaluable, especially for scouts and (once you have Sixth Sense) for figuring out where enemies are.

Venator wrote: Wasn't aware of that change. Last time I played Tier I for a lark I still ran into blurples/unicorns - what did they do fix that (much welcome)?

Well, it was announced and as one of the hated seal clubbers myself, I noticed that when playing my T18, resistance became much harder and I rarely met newbies anymore. I now mostly play tier VI and up. I think they did so that players with a low game count only meet other players with a low game count, and then gradually meets more experienced players.

Venator wrote: The xvm version actually goes better, showing your current view range, max view range, and hard limit of render distance on the minimap. It can be really invaluable, especially for scouts and (once you have Sixth Sense) for figuring out where enemies are.

True. Xvm can be a nice thing, just remember to log into http://www.modxvm.com/en/ to get all the features.

I mostly use QuickyBabys modpack and battle assistant to help me when I play arty.

Hint to newbies: SU-26 has a turret and a fast shooting gun. It doesn't do much damage pr. shot, but the turret makes it fast to aim without having to move the hull. It was Mike that put me on the path of SU-26, but then, it had the 122 gun and could shoot straight, so you could use it as a tank in a pinch. It was totally OP and pure awesome, so understandably, it got nerfed a long time back, but can still do good.

Rumour is that they're going to be finally fixing arty in a future patch. Possibly by copying a lot of Armoured Warfare's implementation.

So what do you do for the mod-- go to the website, download it, run the installer and you're good? (Don't have much experience with modding games)

The link to the mod pack, including preconfigured XVM, are in the description and the instructions for installing everything is in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsbW2FL5JDo

Usually, you put the mod files into the res_mods folder in the World of Tanks folder.

The Infidel wrote:Usually, you put the mod files into the res_mods folder in the World of Tanks folder.

^ That. Once the files are in the folder the passive stuff works right away. If you want the battle stats you have to go to the website and log in, then activate your services.

Considering how much I've been losing on >60% win chance and sweeping great games on <35% recently, it's worth noting that the stats are an interesting tactical note, not a gospel .

Well, I've managed to get the installer to work by some miracle or another. So once this massive update is done- call it an hour or so -I'll be online.

Wonder how out of practice I'll be...haven't played in months.

So, World of Modern Tanks (Armoured Warfare) is into open beta now, and I'm really liking what I'm seeing.

Core mechanics wise it's pretty much World of Tanks, if you've played WoT you can jump in and know almost exactly what everything is and does. (Except that the tier 9/10 vehicles of WoT are now about tier 2/3 and things go up from there.)

The devil, however, is in the details and there are some real improvements on the WoT model.

For a start, no high penetration premium ammo. Your AP ammo is the highest penetration you're getting and average penetration values are considerably lower than WoT, meaning that at least at the lowish tiers I'm at, armour matters. HEAT ammo in this game has lower penetration and is defeated by some armour systems, but does more damage, so is good for shooting at lighter vehicles not MBTs. The game has a full spectrum of modern armoured vehicles, LAVs, IFVs, support guns (like the M1128 MGS), Main Battle Tanks, and Artillery, and they all tend to have things they're good at.

LAV and IFVs are fast movers with ungodly sight ranges, decent camo, and the special ability to designate targets (which causes them to take more damage from allies fire), making them fantastic vision controllers, even if their 20 or 25mm autocannon can't really threaten an enemy tank. Spotting damage is well rewarded as well, roughly equal to dealing damage yourself (I've played a game in the LAV-120 where I did the lowest damage on the team but got the second highest XP, because I spotted all the things). Vehicles with troop compartments also get a bonus to base capture rate. (At higher tiers these vehicles get ATGMs which let them defend themselves from tanks, but I'm not up there yet)

MBTs are the mainstay of fighting, armour seems to matter more, and everyone is at least passably mobile. These are the vehicles that are most like their World of Tanks counterparts. If you know how to tanks, you'll know how to tanks.

Support guns are basically Tank Destroyers, long range, accurate guns, the usual, except some of them are wheeled vehicles.

Artillery is different to WoT, it provides the same role of indirect fire support, but arty does a lot less damage (about the same as normal tanks), more often (about the same as normal tanks). The caveat is that arty tracers are super obvious and if an arty fires from the same place more than a couple of times it becomes spotted to other arty in their arty view, meaning that it will get counterbatteried. Arty also has support shells like illumination and smoke to provide or deny vision.

The damage model is slightly different, hitting weak spots on enemy armour grants more damage, as long as they're relevant, hitting an engine venitlation grille or the driver's hatch will do more damage, but hitting the commander's cupola will only do about 1/3 your normal shell damage because that's not necessarily going to do a whole lot of internal damage, just some spalling.

Researching components and upgrading vehicles is familiar from WoT, but there tend to be less upgrades per tank (and a lot of them are new ammo types it seems). Tanks also each have a special research called a retrofit, which is available once you're halfway up the XP bar for the tank. Retrofits are a lot like the equipment mounts from World of Tanks (and all the equipment things are available there), except they're a much cheaper component which you unlock by playing a vehicle until you get it. For instance, the M41 Walker Bulldog (a tier 2) has the level 1 Reinforced Engine Housing, which gives the engine component 25% extra hp and the overall vehicle 4% extra. Once researched on that vehicle it can be fitted to the Armour retrofit slot on any other vehicle.

There's also a new out of battle mechanic, the Base, which is essentially the daily login reward with a game mechanic attached. You have a set of buildings you can build and upgrade which all give you small bonuses (eg. your level 1 Academy makes your commanders get 2% extra XP per battle), and you build these with a resource called Raw Materials, which currently is only available as a per-day gift.

Premium spending is exactly what you'd expect from WoT, buying premium time, converting XP on completed vehicles to free XP, and retraining crew. Gold economy seems to be roughly similar, though that base mechanic has a building which reduces the cost of premium time by a small amount.

The game also has a PvE mode, short co-op missions against AI opponents. They're fun, if not as rewarding as real battle (about half the payout). The ones I've tried have been reasonably easy, though the lighter vehicles can get in trouble fast enough (though that could just be my tendency to drive them like I stole them, the M41 will do 72kmh on road so it seems criminal not to). I haven't got access to the "hard" tier either, which might well pay out better, but need at least tier 4 vehicles.


Overall, it's WoT but fresh again. Check it out.

Vendetta wrote:For a start, no high penetration premium ammo. Your AP ammo is the highest penetration you're getting and average penetration values are considerably lower than WoT, meaning that at least at the lowish tiers I'm at, armour matters. HEAT ammo in this game has lower penetration and is defeated by some armour systems, but does more damage, so is good for shooting at lighter vehicles not MBTs.

I bought the fancy founders back and the MBT-70's armor still holds up at tier 6. This game really requires you to pick weak spots to pen equal tier MBTs frontally.

LAV and IFVs are fast movers with ungodly sight ranges, decent camo, and the special ability to designate targets (which causes them to take more damage from allies fire), making them fantastic vision controllers, even if their 20 or 25mm autocannon can't really threaten an enemy tank. Spotting damage is well rewarded as well, roughly equal to dealing damage yourself (I've played a game in the LAV-120 where I did the lowest damage on the team but got the second highest XP, because I spotted all the things). Vehicles with troop compartments also get a bonus to base capture rate. (At higher tiers these vehicles get ATGMs which let them defend themselves from tanks, but I'm not up there yet)

Those autocannons loaded with HE can do enough damage to back an MBT off if you know where to aim. They all just eat tracks for breakfast if anybody wants to angle their armor against you. On the other hand, ATGMs aren't all that. You need to be still to fire them, have to stay open to guide them, and they fly pretty slowly meaning that perfect shot into a tanks ass can splash harmlessly into terrain or be eaten by their tracks.

<snip>

Nothing to add here.

Artillery is different to WoT, it provides the same role of indirect fire support, but arty does a lot less damage (about the same as normal tanks), more often (about the same as normal tanks). The caveat is that arty tracers are super obvious and if an arty fires from the same place more than a couple of times it becomes spotted to other arty in their arty view, meaning that it will get counterbatteried. Arty also has support shells like illumination and smoke to provide or deny vision.

Arty might even do slightly less damage per shot than an MBT, but they make up for it with their rate of fire and ability to shift around to hit from unexpected angles. It feels like they actually break up camping now just because people tend to move when they see the little incoming shell warning pop up.

The damage model is slightly different, hitting weak spots on enemy armour grants more damage, as long as they're relevant, hitting an engine venitlation grille or the driver's hatch will do more damage, but hitting the commander's cupola will only do about 1/3 your normal shell damage because that's not necessarily going to do a whole lot of internal damage, just some spalling.

Tank Destroyers also get a damage bonus when hitting people from beyond 300m range. This game really wants you to play tanks in a certain way, but it rewards you for doing so.

Researching components and upgrading vehicles is familiar from WoT, but there tend to be less upgrades per tank (and a lot of them are new ammo types it seems). Tanks also each have a special research called a retrofit, which is available once you're halfway up the XP bar for the tank. Retrofits are a lot like the equipment mounts from World of Tanks (and all the equipment things are available there), except they're a much cheaper component which you unlock by playing a vehicle until you get it. For instance, the M41 Walker Bulldog (a tier 2) has the level 1 Reinforced Engine Housing, which gives the engine component 25% extra hp and the overall vehicle 4% extra. Once researched on that vehicle it can be fitted to the Armour retrofit slot on any other vehicle.

The only thing I don't like about retrofits is that, at least IIRC, you can trade them between tanks. That's less of an issue when unlimited garage slots don't force you into selling tanks, but it's still a small thing.

Overall, it's WoT but fresh again. Check it out.

This game really is WoT+. If you want tank action, but are in need of something new try it. If you're burnt out on the Wargaming/Gaijin style arena grinder this probably won't bring you back around.

Jub wrote: The only thing I don't like about retrofits is that, at least IIRC, you can trade them between tanks. That's less of an issue when unlimited garage slots don't force you into selling tanks, but it's still a small thing.

True, but at least the tier 1 retrofits are cheap as balls, 5-7k credits instead of half a million for your Vstabs.

Also, I think it's worth noting that high tier WoT concepts like working ridgelines with gun depression, sidescraping to hide your front/lower glacis, etc come in basically at tier 2 in AW.

Which is nice.

Anyone can comment on lag if playing from asia on NA for AW?

It's an interesting game in some ways, and I've been playing a bit of it. Very grindy of course, and my M60A2 Starship is a godawful chore with its painful reload and being limited to HEAT, and the Shillelaghs really aren't any better than standard HEAT rounds. I appreciate the more interesting armor and ammo modelling, with AP variants, AP(FS)DS, HE variants, HESH, HEAT, etc all having different characteristics and performance in difference situations. Armored Warfare does a slightly better job of not kicking tank balance in the balls by at least trying to provide a more varied battlefield of targets to engage, thus giving a reason to have armor and different ammunition types. HEAT in particular is fiendishly effective at lower tiers even against most MBTs since most of the tanks at that tier don't yet sport ERA and other HEAT-defeat techniques. I haven't been able to test to see if tandem-HEAT warheads defeat ERA in turn or not. If not, ATGMs are going to be pretty pointless.

A lot of the same shit I loathe about WoT is still there. The incredibly gamey vision mechanics are as shitty as ever, but at least the artillery isn't quite as bad.