World of Tanks

[xthetenth]

The reasoning behind the decision is clear when you look at it from a purely Russian perpective - the Russian server actually has the player load to make such a move worthwhile and generally avoids the negative effect of low player counts on matchmaking since both would still have enough players to make better matches regularly.

I think it makes a bit of sense if it's mainly for consistency: the code has to generally be the same whether it's the Russian, European, or North American server, but if they can vary the number of clusters between the servers then the Russians can get two, three, or more as necessary, while the US has the option to choose a cluster, that being the Henry Ford choice - "any color so long as it's NA1", and avoid splitting the limited playerbase where it's unnecessary and would cause more problems.

I'm not expecting much more than maybe a US one and an Oceania one if that many (remember Australia is on the US server, and their latency is enough to make clusters worthwhile. However, given the Russian server's population issues and that the EU server has significantly more players, it's likely just keeping a consistent code base for the US server.

That only raises the question of how optimistic we want to be about Wargaming's decision-making process.

It started and ended at "Oh sweet jesus the server is on fire!" in this case. They need an implementation about two months ago.

On the plus side, 7.0 is coming out really soon, and the 7.1 test server should be starting this week (It's in the EU question and answer thread but the scheduling is usually the same for both servers. This is really good news in my book because it shows they've definitely got two teams capable of getting serious tank making work done now. (7.0 includes a significant rebuild for almost all the older tanks' armor models to bring them up to standards). I think a rather significant number of WG's problems have been in going from being a smallish studio to really quite large. Both growing and managing huge teams are painful and they're new to both.

[Simon_Jester]

What do you mean about the armor models, precisely?

[Agent Sorchus]

Older tanks had 8 different types of armor(as in armor values, the three the game shows you is not true), while newer ones had 16, which left some weird effects. It is most notable when you compare Tiger P and H turrets. The P has a the overhang of the mantlet over the front armor modeled and will bounce ridiculous Tier ten shots off the top of the turret front, while the Tiger has only the mantlet and doesn't model the overlap.

Plus they are adding some spaced armor to all tanks (some get a little more than others). The E100 has it and is a lot harder to hurt with arty, I've heard and seen HEAT rounds impacting the front directly and not penetrating (And dealing no damage) from a T92.

This means that there will be more weak and strong spots on all tanks.

[Agent Sorchus]

Oh yes and 7.0 is coming out tomorrow.

And there was much rejoicing.

[Marko Dash]

especially considering once 7.0 goes life you can jump right in to the 7.1 test

[Mr. Coffee]

Um, we're already playing the 7.1 test.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Should mention these:

Free T-127 (Soviet premium T3 light) and a day of premium: just have to give them an email address and they'll send you a code.

Free Soviet Lend-Lease M3 Stuart + 750 gold + a week of premium: more involved, since you have to sign up for an IGN prime free trial, meaning credit cards or paypal come into play, though you can cancel it before paying a dime.

Props to Vortex and Sorchus who told me about the T-127 deal. That thing is hella fun.

Is it susposed to be in German, and where to I enter the code?

[Scottish Ninja]

Go to game.worldoftanks.com, sign in, and click on the arrow next to your name on the top right, click "Enter bonus code".

Yes, the first one is in German, it's an offer from a German site.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Thanks. I figured it would just be simple, but the German threw me off.

[Thunderfire]

The new french tanks will be a worthy addition to world of tanks. Heavily armored light tanks, a fast tier 10 heavy and one of their tier VI gets a gun with 236mm penetration.

[Rekkon]

The T-127 is interesting. It plays like a lighter, faster Valentine, which I suppose make sense since they have the exact same cannon. Played alone or in homogenous platoons, the matchmaker loves them. We never see tanks above T4 with our Valentines unless we pollute the purity of the platoon.

[xthetenth]

The French tanks are all generally ridiculous in some way. The low tier stuff is really well armored with weak guns, the mid tier stuff generally has guns with a strange balance between the pen and damage, and the top ones are really fast with huge burst damage and terrible DPS. Then the Tier X apparently has 230 mm of frontal armor and a 280 pen gun. What. I'll need to mess with that later.

[Marko Dash]

the tier 1-3 battles are all bounce fests, even with the 25mm.

[Scottish Ninja]

I'm liking 0.7.0. Ping and FPS have both improved, and many many many little things that bothered me about the interface have been fixed - like not being able to see the price of a tank in the store if it's in your garage, not being able to see the XP cost of modules that I've already researched (useful when talking to people who haven't researched that yet).

[Simon_Jester]

The French tanks come available with 0.7.1, is that right?

[The Vortex Empire]

So earlier today, I was running a Pz 38 Na, a tier iv light tank. And it put me into a match loaded with tier 8s and 9s, including 3 hostile Type 59s and a Lowe. Yes, the matchmaker makes perfect sense.

[Simon_Jester]

It's a systemic problem- the game designers seem to have this image of a "light tank" role that only exists on paper. In theory, the superior mobility of the light tanks would let them rush around the flanks of a formation and hit things like artillery in the rear. In theory, the light tanks' camouflage advantage would make them good scouts for the rest of the force. In theory, they should be able to do those things and be useful, effective vehicles even on a battlefield full of much more powerful tanks.

And that all makes sense, it would be cool in the game, but in practice, it doesn't work. The ratio of force to space is too high: it's possible to line up tanks every 50-100 meters along the entire width of the map, and on most battles exactly that happens, so there's not nearly enough room for a light tank to slip between the cracks and get to the rear without encountering far better armed mediums and lights.

Plus, it's practically impossible for a tank to spend any length of time in the presence of the enemy (close enough to see and, potentially, be seen) without getting shot at... while light tanks have basically zero survivability against fire from anything much above their own tier. At most, they get thirty seconds of glory before a fast-firing medium manages to hammer them down, and even that's a lot to ask for.

Matches would be more fun for light tanks if the game designers just accepted that (as in real life) the 'medium tanks' of 30+ tons replace the light tank mission at high tiers, because they're tough enough to be harder to one-shot and armed well enough to fight back effectively. So yes, light tanks aren't represented in matches above about Tier 7, and that's fine.

[Zinegata]

Light tanks are small enough to make excellent passive scouts though, it's what the 38nA should really aim for in a high tier match.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

So earlier today, I was running a Pz 38 Na, a tier iv light tank. And it put me into a match loaded with tier 8s and 9s, including 3 hostile Type 59s and a Lowe. Yes, the matchmaker makes perfect sense.

At this point I just look at the matchmaker as a course hazard, everybody gets fucked by it until tier 8 or so.

[Simon_Jester]

Light tanks are small enough to make excellent passive scouts though, it's what the 38nA should really aim for in a high tier match.

Hopefully- but there's a lot of risk involved, which is kind of the point.

And what is, for me, almost more annoying than the "horribly outclassed" matches is the ones where your tank is merely well below average. Sure, you might be able to contribute meaningfully to the battle, but you're fighting under one heck of a disadvantage to the point where you have to think more like a hunted rabbit than like a combatant if you want to accomplish anything.

I recognize that once in a while by a freak of nature I'll be totally outclassed, and all I can do is die gallantly and start over. But when it seems like half my matches involve being outgunned significantly but not entirely hopelessly, that's a substantial chunk of my gameplay time on that day.

[Thunderfire]

So earlier today, I was running a Pz 38 Na, a tier iv light tank. And it put me into a match loaded with tier 8s and 9s, including 3 hostile Type 59s and a Lowe. Yes, the matchmaker makes perfect sense.

It makes sense - a well piloted light tank is able to decide a top tier march.

[xthetenth]

The French tanks come available with 0.7.1, is that right?

Yes, and the test server's already up for the Russian client, not sure if the patch'd work on a US client.

So earlier today, I was running a Pz 38 Na, a tier iv light tank. And it put me into a match loaded with tier 8s and 9s, including 3 hostile Type 59s and a Lowe. Yes, the matchmaker makes perfect sense.

It makes sense - a well piloted light tank is able to decide a top tier march.

Lights aren't necessarily to penetrate deep into enemy lines, you'd be amazed how useful a scout run can be at breaking a deadlock between two camping sides where suddenly only one side can see. Very useful, and if the shooter couldn't otherwise see you get half the xp.

[Nephtys]

So earlier today, I was running a Pz 38 Na, a tier iv light tank. And it put me into a match loaded with tier 8s and 9s, including 3 hostile Type 59s and a Lowe. Yes, the matchmaker makes perfect sense.

At this point I just look at the matchmaker as a course hazard, everybody gets fucked by it until tier 8 or so.

It depends.

A KV2 can generally be useful. There's almost always SOMETHING it can blast to pieces.
TDs are generally useful. My Slugger's engaged and destroyed Tier 8 targets on several occasions.
Some Mediums work well. the T-34-85 can damage heavy tanks up to tier 9.
The Easy 8 Sherman is basically the ultimate sweeper of 'the rabble'. It can also destroy ANY Heavy it catches alone. I've solo'ed a fresh King Tiger that way.

Almost all of the Tier 4 ANYTHINGS get screwed hard though.

[Zinegata]

Hetzer and T28 mostly do fine because they both have oversized guns.

[Simon_Jester]

I view Tier 4 (with any vehicle other than the T-28 Soviet medium, and maybe one or two others) as a training course: you're picking up the skills that will be useful later on when driving more effective vehicles. Things like angle-awareness (trying to present the better-protected parts of your vehicle at favorable angles, while shooting the enemy at angles favorable to you), creative use of terrain (especially hull-down positions and creative corner-peeking), and so on.

The difference being that you are now forced to use those skills to survive combat against vehicles even marginally stronger than you (Tier 5).