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I'm going really heavy into American tanks, I love the M4 so far. I'm QuasiStellarObject by the way.

Ceasing to exist is a pretty compelling reason for not shooting back.

On the subject of tier 8 mediums. Currently the Panther II and Pershing eat the T-44 alive. However, the T-44 will be getting the LB-1 gun soon, so it won't have a gun worse than the Pershing's in every conceivable way in a worse chassis that moves better. The T20 still makes the T-43 look totally superfluous though. Like it does the same stuff faster with a much smaller silhouette and better depression. The depression is the real killer feature of the US mediums, it means you can take shells on terrain rather than the intrinsically weak armor of a medium.

For some reason, both last night and this morning I was getting 0 fps and 999+ millisecond lag... obviously, the game becomes unplayable at that point.

Are they doing anything big on their end? Or is it most likely to be just me at my end?

LOL! Steel Wall with a light tank.

Victory!
Battle: Cliff 9. october 2011 16:26:40
Vehicle: T-50
Experience received: 2 790 (doubled for the first victory each day)
Credits received: 18 729
Battle Achievements: Steel Wall

Force Lord wrote:Updates 7.0 and 7.1 for WoT coming soon. Also, info on World of Warplanes.

Still see no information on them reducing/adjusting high-level artillery. Still have no urge to come back to the game where my E-50 or E-75 can be crippled (25-50% damage, multiple modules damaged) by a "miss".

Do we have any idea what the release date is for 7.0/7.1?

Broken wrote:

Force Lord wrote:Updates 7.0 and 7.1 for WoT coming soon. Also, info on World of Warplanes.

Still see no information on them reducing/adjusting high-level artillery. Still have no urge to come back to the game where my E-50 or E-75 can be crippled (25-50% damage, multiple modules damaged) by a "miss".

I'll ask when the change I saw mentioned, which will add tracers from enemies within a certain distance or who you're looking at, which should help considerably with counterbattery, is getting added. It should make the arty play a bit more cagey. Also, keep in mind, those shells don't come out very often.

Tracers for counterbattery would be wonderful, but between the hackers and lack of dev attention given to the problem of high-tier spg's in general; I'm not hopeful. Given that the big tier 7 and 8 arty on a high pen, high damage hit can one-shot a tier 9 heavy tank like the IS-4 without ammo-racking it, rate of fire is not a tremendous deal especially when their are 3 or 4 of those beasts per side. Sure, arty one-shots don't happen that often, but it happens more often then high-tier heavy and medium tanks ammo-racking each other (except for the t-44, that thing seems to be a rolling ammo-rack made of bounceium; it either bounces off or kills the tank in one-shot). Just as frustrating is the utter destruction a single SPG round does to a tank, reducing it to near uselessness without killing it, before you even know you are under attack. High-tier artillery punishes those players who advance to contact and engage the enemy tanks rather then camping and humping a rock to avoid the orbital death cannons.

Bringing counterbattery back will help with the SPG problem, but it is not a cure-all and it will not be popular, even though back in beta playing counterbattery in my hummel was the most fun I had in that vehicle. Admittedly, I have not read the WoT forums in some weeks, but the last time mention was made of counterbattery possibly coming back, the SPG crowd had a fit that their god-given right to sit in a bush and not move the entire match was being threatened.

I might actually start playing and re-buy my M41 if they put CB back into the game. Arty is goddamned boring to play without it.

It seems only fair to me. By all I've heard, artillery benefits from what amounts to 21st-century battle networking, what with the minimap and the "any tank spotted by any friendly tank can be targeted accurately by the artillery, with no need for surveying or grid squares or any of the other stuff real gunners had to do."

In which case it's only fair that they should have to act like 21st-century self-propelled guns: relocate after every shot or two, because the enemy will figure out your position.

Simon_Jester wrote: In which case it's only fair that they should have to act like 21st-century self-propelled guns: relocate after every shot or two, because the enemy will figure out your position.

Back in beta, if you were playing counterbattery and watching the common arty camping sites, you could have your shell in the air before their shell landed. While counterbatterying, even if you were looking in the completely wrong part of the map, your teammates could call out that they saw arty tracers coming from the east or west side of the map, from over a hill, etc. It made communication even more important and helped make a platoon on voice-coms even more potent.

The best defensive tactic was to not even watch if your shell hit anything but be moving as soon as you fired. Another tactic was to have your auto forward or back going then engage your brake. Release the brake after firing and you didn't even have to leave the god-mode map to start moving. Artillery had to play smart because they had no way of knowing if the other side was playing counterbattery and had to make the decision; support my team's offense/defense by attacking tanks they have spotted or watch for counterbattery opportunities that could turn the tide in a game to your favor by reducing/destroying the enemy's SPG force. Now instead we have SPG's with camo nets and full 100% camo skill crews sitting in a bush so they are invisible until you are 20 meters from them while they never move and just fire away without fear.

As a tanker, I've never had much of a problem with artillery. I make it a point to know the maps and to avoid areas where artillery would have a high probability of scoring a hit.

As an artillery player, I kinda get the issue of people getting bored by the lack of CB. Counter-battery adds a lot of pressure to artillery, as you can no longer fire with impunity without risking getting blown up. Moving out even before spotting where your shell lands all but negates the danger of CB, but it also makes you lose track of what's happening and makes it a little harder to re-acquire your targets.

From a tanker's perspective however, CB and tracers don't really affect tank play much if you know what you're doing. It lessens the power of multiple artillery pieces since if there are 4+ arty on each side, then some artillery will just focus on CB; but it's offset by how CB matches can end pretty rapidly, with one side ending having up with no artillery at all within the first 5 minutes of the match while the other still does.

Well yeah, but the whole match can be decided by losses in the first five minutes, too, although that might change a bit at higher tiers I don't have experience with, where rates of fire drop off sharply.

[Most of the tanks I encounter have a reload time of 2-4 seconds; it's a very different dynamic than I'd face if they had times of 6-10 seconds, I know]

My basic objection to making counterbattery nigh-impossible is that it means artillery can't fight other artillery; it can only fight the non-artillery. Which means that the average ordinary tank will have the hostile attention of 1.2 to 1.5 enemy vehicles directed at it, since the artillery has nothing to do but shoot at the tanks and TDs.

Ok, I've decided to max out at Tier 6, and improve all my previous tanks as well (try to get gold, get good crews etc.). Even in Tier 6, it seems like way too much of a grind to get to Tier 7. In the case of the T-34-85, there isn't that much improvement. So now grinding through the T-46 to get to the soviet heavies. Should I go KV-3 or KV-1S?

defanatic wrote:Ok, I've decided to max out at Tier 6, and improve all my previous tanks as well (try to get gold, get good crews etc.). Even in Tier 6, it seems like way too much of a grind to get to Tier 7. In the case of the T-34-85, there isn't that much improvement. So now grinding through the T-46 to get to the soviet heavies. Should I go KV-3 or KV-1S?

I've not played with either, but based on my experience in fighting them I'd say go with the KV-3. Back when I was playing tier-6 or 7 mediums I found it quite a relief to notice that a heavy was nothing but a KV-1S. The KV-3 on the other hand can be a though nut to crack for a medium tank of the same tier and formidable opponent when well played for mediums one tier above.

KV-1S is armored worse than a KV, only moves slightly faster than the stock KV and faces enemies from higher tiers.

Oh, and it also has crappier guns than the basic KV

I basically eat a KV-1S in any medium of a similar tier.

One thing I would like is not to have all my tier 6s using the 100mm gun. KV-1S can take a long 122 mm, making it an alright sniping tank.

KV-3 gets the 107, which still has the best DPS of all the KV series guns. Don't bother with the T-43. It's not worth it. The IS is pretty awesome though. Also, the KV-3 will split and give you a free tier VII if you get there quickly enough.

I've done ok on the KV-1S. I call it the baby IS

Weird days. Managed to pick up 3 Top Guns in two days, each more odd than the last.

Firstly, with the Marder II. Not too shabby and with it's top gun it's a little monster. Then the Pz35(t). Not entirely sure how, but that got my first 7 kill spree with it's dinky little gun. Finally, Top Gun in the Churchill. When it's near the top of a match it's pretty darn scary.

Oh, and picked up the Panther II. Now to actually get the suspension to make it better than the Panther.

Welp. I just started this game, username Neph. And I'm HOPELESS.

I understand the fire, maneuver and cover tactics. In fact, I've generally survived through ridiculous odds, and have saved the team several times. But I cannot kill anything worth a damn. I'm now driving the friggin' A20, and can't seem to do enough to get a non-shit gun.

I don't know what else I can do. I'm trying to scout and flank, but even if I pop that M4 in the ass, it turns around and just cores me. What can I do?

Nephtys wrote:Welp. I just started this game, username Neph. And I'm HOPELESS.

I understand the fire, maneuver and cover tactics. In fact, I've generally survived through ridiculous odds, and have saved the team several times. But I cannot kill anything worth a damn. I'm now driving the friggin' A20, and can't seem to do enough to get a non-shit gun.

I don't know what else I can do. I'm trying to scout and flank, but even if I pop that M4 in the ass, it turns around and just cores me. What can I do?

With the A-20, you generally want to NOT engage enemies.

You want to scout for your heavy hitters and arty. The scouting gameplay is not for everyone, but unfortunately the tech trees force a lot of players into it. You get rewarded for detecting enemies, and FOR THE ENEMIES YOU DETECTED THAT YOUR TEAMMATES KILL.

I wrote this in all caps because a whole lot of scouts don't understand this simple fact.

Though you can usually murder artillery and TD (exceptfor the REALLY heuge ones) because you can outrun their turret traverse.

It's a tough balance it seems. My friendly tanks are incompetent (I keep scouting for KVs who then miss), my own camoflage level is... confusing. I have no idea when I'm spotted and when I'm not. I'm about as survivable as the BT-7, but only 2/3rds as fast and less maneuverable... so I can't even dodge that well...