World of Tanks (Vol 2)

[scubadude]

Impressive, got the replay up anywhere?

[jimmyjimjim]

I really should turn them on. Let me do so now, ready for the next one in 6 months....

[SarGara]

So with the announcement/leak of the upcoming Tier9 Maus I decided to pull my finger out and work my way down the German tech line and have just got to the "VK 45.02 (p) ausf. A" http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Tank:VK4502A

What a snotter this tank is! Easily the worst Tier8 heavy I have had the misfortune of playing, no wonder everyone goes the Tiger2>E75>E100 route instead!

I thought with having the same turret as the Tiger2 it "could be alright" but no.
- Huge profile/silhouette (tall)
- Sloped armor sure but worthless, not boucny like the Tiger2 in the slightest
- 200pen top gun at Tier8....

Sure I can have good games in it but they are situation based, not due to the tanks characteristics, they would have been good games in any other Tier8 heavy too.

(edit). I dont know how old that Wiki article i linked is but in the current game it certinally cannot medium hunt as it suggests, due to power creep.

[Mastodon2]

That tier 9 Maus is certainly an intriguing prospect. I wish they'd give the tier 10 Maus a buff to encourage people to actually play it, instead of just defaulting to the E-100.

And yes, the VK45 A is utter trash. It's one of those tanks that I love seeing on the red team.

[Beati Dogu]

I didn't like the Tiger II at first and it took me a while to adapt to it. The VK45.02A is faster & more mobile than the Tiger II and has better DPM.

The VK45.02B was over buffed and has ridiculous front armour. Personally I'd want to play that before it's replaced.

I had the opportunity to shoot the front of one several times with my tier 9 Waffle (with the long barrel, high pen gun). It would not go through the front at all, even with premium shells. You can try shooting the commander's cupola, but if he's above you and moving it's very difficult to do. Don't even try basically; Go for the side and rear.

I had a fight with one in my ST-I recently. I shot him twice in the side before he came at me and tried to face hug. I faked him out by aiming at his hull, then lifted the gun at the last second and killed him with a cupola hit.

[Beati Dogu]

Further to that Russian T34 kill stealing special: On the South East Asia server they have a Lunar New Year special to get a 112 Chinese premium heavy tank. People only need to get 80K damage & 80 kills with all 7 nations for that one.

Hopefully EU and NA will get something like this as well.

[bstb3]

If they do an EU one then hopefully they do damage and xp or wins, rather than kills. It was crackers over the Xmas one, getting the damage was not too bad but the kills always felt like it dragged.

Be nice if it wasn't a mental one for a tier 8 too - maybe something lighter for a tier 6 or 7 or something. Be good to do one for a Fury for example, maybe 75k xp & 75k damage.

[Beati Dogu]

Well they had a couple last year for the TOG & Super Pershing which wasn't that hard.

I'd rather do that than another grindfest.

[JustinF]

Floated an idea for a competition in chat; fresh account, best 250 game win-rate performance.

Needs fleshing out but I'm thinking, no gold, no premium, no purchased tanks, ammo or equipment (would require honesty and goodwill but this is a small group of PH and that's a given tbh)

There is however a catch, I sunk a few too many on Friday and agreed to do the Brighton marathon in 6 weeks time...I haven't run for 20 years but I did take up cycling 2 years ago after 24 years of smoking, it is going to hurt.

I'm proposing the following, sponsor me £1(or more!) for the marathon to enter the challenge, the guy/gal with the best WR at 250 games (start/finish date to be agreed, along with to be discussed caveats) gets his/her premium vehicle of choice tier 3-6 on me, (not from donations all those go to charity).

[Mastodon2]

Another night stomping n00bs with my regular platoon. I forgot to mention that the 3 of us picked up another Brothers in Arms medal each, each netting 3 kills. Tonight was more of the same, we pulled off some brilliant victories, including 2 matches where it looked like we were going to get absolutely flattened but managed to save it. Tonight we were running two Chi-Nu mediums, and a T1 Heavy. It's a remarkably strong formation, the T1 serving as an armoured anchor, the Chi-Nus working as spotter/snipers. Quite a few times we broke enemy pushes when a KV-1, VK36.01h or other key tank tunnel-visioned on the T1, letting me and Rich in the Chi-Nus rip shred them from a flanking position.

There are some great XP operations on this week too, I pretty much played through the Chi-nu in a single evening sitting of about 3 hours.

[bstb3]

Thats a good idea about the competition JustinF, sounds like an interesting challenge. I'd be up for it if you get enough interest - also i'm sure we can sponsor you for the marathon even if this doesn't go ahead

Not sure if I've just been unlucky this last couple of days, but some of the recent teams have been utter shockers. All kinds of moaning, team damage, trolls, complete fails, everything. Loss after loss after loss, no matter how hard you try gets really annoying.

Got to the point last night I was so tilt that for the first time in 20k games I actually deliberately tk'd someone. They spent the whole match just pushing, blocking, ramming and generally trying to irritate me, right from the start in the cap circle. Twice deliberately tried to block me out in front of the enemy, never once even trying to do anything other than get on my nerves. Tried relocating but they just followed, obviously asked them to stop which they didnt (think it was a RU account). Did manage to once block them out in front of the enemy myself, hoping they would do the job for me but even they were so incompetent they kept missing . So once the match was obviously won I just gave up and killed the st. Only took 1 shot, but ffs why do these people even bother? Ended up just doing 350 damage in that game on a double due to the idiot. 5k games, and that's what they are doing.

The following game ended with a stand off between our arty (Grille) and a kv85 on 9 health. They could see each other, either side of a corner of a building, and neither could move out without the other getting the first shot. Some tactical genius tells our arty to try and splash him - actually not a bad idea in theory, except there is no way to get a shot close. So Arty wiggles, moves a bit, looks like he is aiming through the building...shoots the building...splashes himself, killing his driver and losing half his HP. KV85 obviously takes the gift and wins. Now you wouldn't have expected the grille to win necessarily, but really is that what this game is coming to?

[scubadude]

JustinF said:

Floated an idea for a competition in chat; fresh account, best 250 game win-rate performance.

I saw your suggestion, as I said only just got to 750 battles myself! Can you have multiple accounts, would everyone agree to play the same vehicles?

Spent ages being killed and not even making the end of battles last night, then suddenly everything came good, we won in a 19% battle, then I made it to the end twice in a row and finally pulled the old ELC out for the tour and picked up another Mastery on it with a storming round, I just couldn't miss :-)

[scubadude]

bstb3 said:

Got to the point last night I was so tilt that for the first time in 20k games I actually deliberately tk'd someone.

I had a question about this...

The other day I was heading back to protect the cap and suddenly found a static (AFK?) tank with "enemy" colour above it (I use the blue as am colour blind) so I finished him off and got fined for killing an ally!!!

Do immobile or logged off players change colour? If So there is a serious issue with the colour blind settings on the markers!!!!

[bstb3]

When someone team damages enough their tank marker in the player list (and above their tank I think) turns light blue in the regular colour scheme. At this point you can shoot them / kill them without penalty to yourself. I also play with the colourblind scheme (don't need it, just prefer it to red) and it seems the same.

There is an autoban system whereby anyone doing enough team damage will become instantly kicked - they turn blue first as a warning and if they carry on they get kicked and a 1 hour ban (first time round). How much damage you need to do to go blue I don't know, it's something like 3 shots in a row, but there are cumulative amounts also and its much more sensitive if you damage people while they are in the cap circles.

It sounds like you maybe came across someone who had been kicked, but if so killing them shouldn't have earned you a fine at all. Are you sure you hadn't shot someone else earlier by accident?

edit
Turning blue itself doesn't get you banned, you just have to be more careful not to do team damage until your flagged status goes away (a few games iirc). Generally speaking the odd shot of team damage won't hurt you provided you are doing much more damage to enemies, hence I was safe to shoot the griefer last night. Had I shot him 2 or 3 times then I may have gone blue.

Edited by bstb3 on Tuesday 3rd March 12:12

[Rabidfish]

bstb3 said:

but really is that what this game is coming to?

Nope. It's always been that bad. The trouble is you get sustained periods of extreme badness and that just makes you think it's got worse. Really it's just a low point in the cycle of WOT badness. You will soon get an upward curve of godlike invincibility smiting all comers.
I had another evening in the Lorr 50. After a seemingly endless run of not particularly competitive teams (think getting blatted by scouts in minute one bad) my luck turned. I know it was my night on Ruinberg - they had taken the field and I was running. I was doing full speed and snap shotted a T71 going at full pelt about 200M away. Loads of clicker abuse... very funny. Need to redeem the win rate on it though before the tier 8 arrives. Strange because I will only attempt to rescue win rates on tanks I like but didn't do justice.
That means I must like this arty? Time for a shower...

[Beati Dogu]

I'd be up for the new account challenge too Justin. I think you'd have to limit it to tier 1 or it'll be just a T18 spamfest.

New accounts start with a 100% crew at least. Gone are the days of a 50% crew which most of us probably had. It only takes 2-3 wins to elite a tier 1 as well.

Good luck with the marathon.

scubadude said:

Can you have multiple accounts, would everyone agree to play the same vehicles?

I don't think you're technically supposed to have multiple accounts, but they can't detect them and don't police it, so what the hell. Just use a different email address to register it.

scubadude said:

I had a question about this...

The other day I was heading back to protect the cap and suddenly found a static (AFK?) tank with "enemy" colour above it (I use the blue as am colour blind) so I finished him off and got fined for killing an ally!!!

Do immobile or logged off players change colour? If So there is a serious issue with the colour blind settings on the markers!!!!

Immobile players don't change colour, but ones who've reached the threshold of team damage turn blue on the team list and overhead marker. You can kill them without penalty, although I'd only do so if they're being a cock. It may be accidental and they'll still be an asset to the team. If someone damages a team mate 4 times in a row, they'll be kicked from the game for an hour and their tank will freeze where it was. Again, you can kill it without penalty.

I don't know if you've done it yet, but when platooning, the other platoon members will have an orange overhead marker (not sure what it'll be in colour blind mode). When I platooned up for the first time, I shot my team mate once instinctively, thinking it was the red marking of an enemy. I didn't kill him and I've not done it since.

[scubadude]

bstb3 said:

When someone team damages enough their tank marker in the player list (and above their tank I think) turns light blue in the regular colour scheme. At this point you can shoot them / kill them without penalty to yourself. I also play with the colourblind scheme (don't need it, just prefer it to red) and it seems the same.

There is an autoban system whereby anyone doing enough team damage will become instantly kicked - they turn blue first as a warning and if they carry on they get kicked and a 1 hour ban (first time round). How much damage you need to do to go blue I don't know, it's something like 3 shots in a row, but there are cumulative amounts also and its much more sensitive if you damage people while they are in the cap circles.

It sounds like you maybe came across someone who had been kicked, but if so killing them shouldn't have earned you a fine at all. Are you sure you hadn't shot someone else earlier by accident?

edit
Turning blue itself doesn't get you banned, you just have to be more careful not to do team damage until your flagged status goes away (a few games iirc). Generally speaking the odd shot of team damage won't hurt you provided you are doing much more damage to enemies, hence I was safe to shoot the griefer last night. Had I shot him 2 or 3 times then I may have gone blue.

Edited by bstb3 on Tuesday 3rd March 12:12

Cheers, I don't know it was a while ago... I doubt I plugged anyone else but I did feel a bit bad, I'll bear it in mind in future- perhaps I can change it in the settings somewhere.

In fact I shot someone last night too but I was in sniper mode lining up on a tank that had been periodically peeking out from behind a building (300mtrs away), just as he did someone drove about 1meter infront of me but I'd already fired so they took it in the tracks then got pounded stuck in the open :_)

I make a rule never to drive just infront or behind someone in case they have to move or fire.

[Beati Dogu]

It's annoying when that happens. They usually get quite stty about it too, but tough. They should be more careful.

What really annoys me though is people driving right behind me stopping me from pulling back.

[jimmyjimjim]

bstb3 said:

How much damage you need to do to go blue I don't know, it's something like 3 shots in a row, but there are cumulative amounts also and its much more sensitive if you damage people while they are in the cap circles.

edit
Turning blue itself doesn't get you banned, you just have to be more careful not to do team damage until your flagged status goes away (a few games iirc). Generally speaking the odd shot of team damage won't hurt you provided you are doing much more damage to enemies, hence I was safe to shoot the griefer last night. Had I shot him 2 or 3 times then I may have gone blue.

I got an insta-blue once (And I'm fairly sure the only time) for having an arty round one-shot an M6 who was afk, having spawned in our cap circle.

Can't recall how long it took to clear.

[bstb3]

Beati Dogu said:

It's annoying when that happens. They usually get quite stty about it too, but tough. They should be more careful.

What really annoys me though is people driving right behind me stopping me from pulling back.

Yeah there's not much worse than some clueless wonder blocking you out, it's really annoying because they often don't know what they have done I suspect. Same with the heavies who park right behind your stealthed TD, getting you shot at when they are spotted.